The Great Lillian Hall's Ending Explained (2024)

Warning! This article contains SPOILERS for The Great Lillian Hall.

The Great Lillian Hall is a new HBO original movie streaming on Max starring Jessica Lange as the titular character, a legendary Broadway actress who deals with a dementia diagnosis while preparing for the opening of her new play. Also featured in the cast are Jesse Williams, Lily Rabe, Pierce Brosnan, and Kathy Bates. The HBO movie serves as an American Horror Story Reunion 10 years after the end of AHS: Coven, which featured Lange, Rabe, and Bates.

The actresses make a great trio in the film, with Cindy Hogan also appearing in a featured role as one of the producers of Lillian’s play. The Great Lillian Hall was directed by Michael Cristofer, known for his work directing Broadway plays and serving as a writer and/or director on multiple films, including The Witches of Eastwick and The Night Clerk. The movie was also the screenwriting feature film debut of Elisabeth Seldes Annacone. Fortunately, The Great Lillian Hall ended Lange’s worst post-AHS career trend by receiving a 100% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes.

The Final Shot Of The Great Lillian Hall Explained

The Final Shot Is Of A Ghost Light

The Great Lillian Hall is beautifully shot by Cristofer. The shots and sequences throughout the film convey Lillian’s mental state, with her fluctuating between lucid and senile at any given moment. The film also captures documentary sequences and stage performances from rehearsals to opening night, showing different styles and conventions. However, the final shot is a quiet, solitary one of a ghost light turned on in a theater.

As a movie about acting, and stage acting in particular, The Great Lillian Hall never takes a moment to pause and explain the intricacies of theater to viewers. Thus, some viewers might be confused by the final shot. A ghost light is a single light left on in a theater when it’s empty to prevent it from going completely dark.

According to the Shakespeare Theater Company, the name comes from superstitions and spiritual beliefs. It is often believed that ghosts haunt every theater, and the lights serve as a guide for those ghosts. On the other hand, they’re also meant to ward off “mischievous” spirits.

Who Is Carson In The Great Lillian Hall?

Lillian Kept Seeing Visions Of Carson

Throughout The Great Lillian Hall, Lange’s character saw visions of a man whose name was later revealed to be Carson (Michael Rose). The film never explicitly explains who he is, but it can be inferred that Carson was Lillian’s dearly departed husband. Lillian first sees Carson in her dressing room, but her hallucinations of him become more frequent once she receives her dementia diagnosis and the play’s opening date rapidly approaches.

One of the most emotional moments in The Great Lillian Hall takes place in the hospital after she fell during rehearsal, exposing her diagnosis to her only daughter, Margaret (Rabe). When Lillian envisions Carson in her hospital room, she ignores everyone else’s cries as she reaches out for him, trying to go to him and finally be with him again. Carson appears for a final time when Lillian sees him on her opening night walk to the theater and follows him to their bench in Central Park instead.

It’s a bittersweet moment, as Lillian finally accepts that it’s not time for them to be reunited. While Lillian claimed they didn’t have enough time together, the warm and funny Carson reminds her of the life they were able to share. Fortunately, her manager, Edith (Bates), finds her and manages to get her to opening night on time.

The Symbolism Behind The Cherry Orchard Explained

The Chekhov Play Mirrored Lillian’s Life

Lillian spends The Great Lillian Hall preparing for the opening of a revival of Anton Chekhov’s 1903 play, The Cherry Orchard. In 1904, it had its first premiere at the Moscow Art Theatre directed by Konstantin Stanislavski. While Chekhov thought the play was a comedy, Stanislavski directed it as though it was a tragedy, which is a great descriptor for Lillian’s own story. Lillian plays Madame Lyubov, an aristocratic Russian landowner who returns to her family estate when she learns it’s being auctioned to pay the mortgage.

The Great Lillian Hall features snippets of The Cherry Orchard and Lillian’s performance of it. There’s a great focus on Chekhov's script, with Lillian having trouble remembering her lines. She particularly struggled to remember the following line, "I can’t go away by myself, I’m afraid of the silence.” Lillian kept forgetting its final word, "silence."

This mirrors Lillian’s own fears about her dementia and potentially having to retire from the theater. With her husband gone and a complicated relationship with her daughter, Lillian lives alone. Part of the monologue includes the line “here it’s so noisy,” which could be a descriptor of the theater and her life there. The Cherry Orchard ends with the estate being sold and the family having to move on, as Lillian’s diagnosis was forcing her to do with her career.

Why David Wanted To Keep Lillian In The Play

David Was Also Making A Documentary Behind The Scenes

As rehearsals progressed, it became clear that Lillian probably wouldn’t be able to perform the entire play without major mishaps, let alone eight times a week in front of a paying audience. Williams played David, the play’s younger director who had already made a name for himself. He was working with Hogan’s Jane, whom he often disagreed with about Lillian and the play. While Jane wanted to replace Lillian with her younger, more prepared understudy, Haley (Rebecca Watson), David was insistent on keeping Lillian.

David saw their production of The Cherry Orchard as a chance to unite the best actress of Broadway’s old guard, Lillian, with an established modern Broadway talent in himself. He needed a reason to revive the Chekhov play over 100 years from when it first premiered, and Lillian was that reason. Additionally, he was filming a documentary about the making of the play and Lillian herself, and needed her and her dramatics to stick around to make it work.

Why Lillian Asked Edith About Actors & Children

Lillian Had A Complicated Relationship With Margaret

Early in the film, Lillian asks Edith whether actors should have children. Lillian had expressed some disappointment in Margaret, who worked as a dog biographer for a dog shelter and whose husband was a struggling artist. When Margaret asked Lillian for help paying for her son’s braces, Lillian’s first reaction to Edith was that it was too expensive. When Lillian asks her question, Edith asks if she wants an honest answer or if she wants to argue.

When Edith says she doesn’t think actors should have children, an argument ensues. However, Lillian knew deep down that Edith was right, at least in her case. She later confesses as much to David after he drives her to visit her daughter, her son-in-law, and her grandson. While Lillian slept on the couch, she overheard a conversation between David and Margaret about Margaret’s childhood.

Margaret told him, “They were inseparable, Mom, Dad, the theater. And there really wasn’t room for anything else.” After Margaret told David about how Lillian used to sing “Hush, Little Baby” to her, they share a touching moment on the porch where an aging Lillian sings it to her grown daughter. Sadly, this sweet moment in their relationship doesn’t last too long, as when Margaret finds out Lillian kept her diagnosis from her, she tells her, “You never wanted to be my mother. You just wanted to play the part.”

By the end of The Great Lillian Hall, Margaret and Lillian are in a better place. Lillian paid off Margaret’s mortgage and Margaret attended The Cherry Orchard’s opening night. Finally, through a Chekhov monologue Lillian delivered onstage about motherhood, Margaret was able to connect with Lillian as her mother and a brilliant actress.

Ty & Lillian’s Relationship Explained

Ty Is A Retired Actor & Lillian’s Neighbor

There’s one character in The Great Lillian Hall who only shares scenes with Lillian. Ty (Brosnan) is a retired actor who lives next door to Lillian. They have a teasing relationship, never fully admitting they are friends, but he’s always there for her. Ty jokes about being a womanizer, but he does care for Lillian on some level, whether it’s romantic or not. They do share a kiss at one point, at a lonely Lillian’s request, but nothing further happens.

With Lillian living alone, Ty is her greatest supporter outside of Edith. He helps her run her lines and listens to her when she just needs someone to talk to. At one point, Lillian talks about old opening night gift traditions. She told Ty about how the famous Barrymore family members used to give each other apples. Ty later whittles Lillian a wooden theater mask for an opening night gift with an actual apple to go with it. He doesn’t say a word, leaving it in her dressing room while she’s away, but Lillian knows it’s from him.

What The Great Lillian Hall's Ending Really Means

The Great Lillian Hall’s Ending Had A Deeper Meaning

At the end of The Great Lillian Hall, the titular character was able to get through opening night in front of an adoring audience with help from Edith feeding her lines through an earpiece. It’s a great success that makes the ending satisfying, as well as a big relief for viewers and everyone involved in The Cherry Orchard. The movie ends with footage from the documentary David was making, with shots of Lillian and an interview from Margaret.

In an interview that took place once the show had ended, Margaret’s final line to the camera was “my mother, the great Lillian Hall.” This is both a title drop and a recognition of who her mother truly was. However, before this, everything Margaret said was in the past tense. This, coupled with her emotion and the fact that the documentary was shot in black and white, suggests it was finished and released after Lillian passed.

This is further confirmed by the ghost light. The actors that came before are thought to haunt the theater, and now Lillian is one of them. Just before the ghost light appears, Lillian takes her bows with Carson by her side. She has finally reunited with him, and now the ghost light can guide them. The Great Lillian Hall has a bittersweet ending, as Lillian somehow managed to accomplish what she’d set out to do even with all the doubt and difficulties, but it was also her final performance.

Sources: Rotten Tomatoes, Shakespeare Theater Company

The Great Lillian Hall (2024)

TV-14

Director

Michael Cristofer

Release Date

May 31, 2024

Writers

Elisabeth Seldes Annacone

Cast

Jessica Lange , Kathy Bates , Lily Rabe , Jesse Williams , Pierce Brosnan , Michael Rose , Cindy Hogan , Keith Arthur Bolden

Runtime

110 Minutes