Review of 'Lilies' DVD

Dadda is a widower who had loved his wife and who sets up the parlour as a shrine. No-one can use it. The pianola is their only form of entertainment and it is in and out of the porn shop, depending on finances. The Protestant Dadda married a catholic woman with the agreement between them that the boys were to be brought up Protestant and the girls, Catholic. Dadda is a proud Orangeman and the girls have a local priest as their confidante. Dadda picks up various jobs - shooting rabbits, keeping some livestock, using herbal lore learned from his mother to help people and animals, fighting and gambling.

Iris is the oldest girl and her job is to tend to the family and make biscuits to sell.

May is a servant at a rich couples' house and Ruby was a postmistress during the war but lost her job when the men came home. She starts up a corsetry franchise from home and after some fights is finally allowed to use the parlour for these activities. She becomes excellent at her job and we find out how constraining and unhealthy corsets were for women until the more supple new range Ruby intruduces. Ruby is the most spirited and independent, training for the swimming for the next Olympics as well.

Billy comes home from the war early with an unrecognised post traumatic stress disorder. His ship had been torpedoed and he is now terrified of water. No-one can understand his inability to work. He eventually overcomes this phobia and his nightmares when his boyfriend also arrives home but without any legs. The boyfriend takes him to the beach and Billy's fear is assuaged. Later Billy goes back to sea.

Just so I don't give away the entire plot I'm going to relate one sub-plot about Ruby. She decides to branch out from the confines of home at one stage. She meets by accident a ruling class woman who talks of womens' reproductive rights. The rich woman is a so-called intellectual, married to a doctor. They hold meetings showing the cap as a means of contraception. This is fine.

Then they talk of animal rights at a picnic they have. They are vegetarians themselves. Ruby decides to prove herself to the new "friends" by taking some animal welfare direct action. She lets out all the pigs who are kept on common land. However, the pigs eat all the vegetables. She is caught, charged and taken to court. Her family are all there, but the new friends aren't. Ruby uses the court as a soapbox to explain her new found but naive views. She gets 50 hours of labour redigging the vegetable plot.

But it shows a class division. At the final meeting Ruby goes to, these ruling class intellectuals show their real spots. They talk of the birth rates of the ruling class (their set) falling, but the "uneducated and immoral women of the slums are breeding like rabbits." Ruby is from those slums. They want Ruby to sell the idea of contraception to the poor, only so they don't 'breed' as much. Ruby realises the near fascist sentiments, not as that, but as a rejection of her class and she rejects the idea.

All the family members, try as they might to branch out, always find their best support back at home.