Finally, Lillian and Dan

By Matthew Scott Hunter

Monday, June 16, 2008 | 9:48 p.m.

Watching Finally, Lillian and Dan is like being on a first date with someone who thinks it’s going really well, while you’re checking your watch every 30 seconds and debating whether or not to fake receiving an emergency phone call. The film bills itself as an awkward love story. Well, there’s a whole lot of awkwardness, but very little love (or story, for that matter).

Lillian (Akers) and Dan (Kean) are strangers both paralyzed by the most extreme cases of crippling shyness. Lillian is nearly mute when outside her apartment and only opens up a fraction more when she’s at home with her grandmother. The two women spontaneously dance and sing together in scenes intended to create a feeling of whimsy, but with so little established characterization to work with, these sequences are too subtle to pull it off.

Dan’s even worse. For the bulk of the film, it’s unclear whether he’s even capable of speech. It’s clear he has a crush on Lillian because he stakes out the grocery store where he first saw her, hoping she’ll stop by to buy milk. Factor in his disheveled appearance and scruffy beard, and you’ve got an unintentionally creepy stalker on your hands.

The reality is that two people this standoffish would never manage an introduction, so the film cheats by having Lillian break character to throw a block party. Dan’s the only person to attend, so the two finally meet. The movie then jumps to the middle of an exceedingly awkward date, with Dan driving through the countryside while Lillian flies a kite out the passenger-side window. This all-too-deliberately-cute moment is followed by more awkward silence, which doesn’t make sense. The events that had to occur for them to even be in this position would involve icebreakers, boldness, scheduling and most importantly, speaking. The film continuously puts these characters in situations that play as ridiculously uncomfortable because the film avoids the important comfort-establishing scenes that would have logically led to these situations.

The result is that we feel absolutely no chemistry between Lillian and Dan. We just watch them inexplicably continue to have really bad dates.