Lily Was Here

This time, it actually is the song that goes with the movie I'm blogging about

If you're of a certain age, you may remember how, after leaving the Eurythmics, David A. Stewart had a hit with Dutch saxophonist Candy Dulfer called Lily Was Here. You may have heard as well that it was the title song from a Dutch movie. Well, actually, the original Dutch version of the movie was called De Kassière, which translates as The Cashier. But the movie was released in English-speaking countries with the title Lily Was Here. Recently, I discoverd that the movie is available in an English-language dub on one of the streaming channels, so I decided to watch it.

Lily, played by non-professional actress Marion van Thijn, is a young woman in the Netherlands still living with her parents since she's not yet of legal age, but she has a part-time job as a supermarket cashier. However, as the movie opens, she has to take a sudden break from work because she's got a severe case of nausea. The reason for the nausea, as you can probably figure out, is that she's pregnant. That's bad enough, but worse for her is that she's gotten knocked up courtesy of an American soldier stationed in the Netherlands. Not only that, but it's a black soldier. Lily's parents have been extremely disapproving of her relationship with the soldier, and when they finally learn that she's pregnant, they want her to get an abortion.

Lily doesn't want that. In fact, the soldier has been making plans to bring Lily over to the US with him to meet her family, even if he doesn't know that Lily is pregnant with his child. However, shortly before he's to go back to America, he's out in his car stopped at a railroad crossing. A couple of motorcycle-riding punks approach, like his American car, and start harassing him. When he decidedly doesn't want to be harassed, they beat him to death.

Poor Lily. Now with child and without a father for the child, she decides to run away. She winds up at a commuter rail station with no place to go, something that's noticed by someone else waiting on the platform, a man named Ted (Coen van Vrijberghe, who was apparently a fairly successful actor in the Netherlands before his untimely death). He offers to take her to an unused apartment he owns and let her stay the night, and even gives her some money.

It should be obvious that he wants something in return, and in fact he's a pimp. Working for him is taxi driver Arend (Thom Hoffman), who takes a liking to Lily and wants to help her escape Ted. She, meanwhile, is in need of an obstetrician since she's pregnant, and also needs money. For the first, there are apparently black-market doctors in the Netherlands who will do medical exams off the books of the regular Dutch medical system. For the latter, Lily is able to get a gun and starts doing hold-ups. But what will happen when the baby comes to term and it's time for Lily to give birth?

The one big problem I had with Lily Was Here is that it felt like it had all the production values of a cheap TV Movie of the Week. The plot isn't bad if nothing groundbreaking, but things like the lighting seemed way off to me. The fact that this print was dubbed also caused a few awkward moments when Lily was able to read signs and other things in Dutch that, in a subtitled movie, would simply be explained with more subtitles. Having to do it through dialogue made things a bit unnatural at times. The music is unsurprisingly quite good although whether it fits the movie would be a matter for debate.

If you can find Lily Was Here still available on one of the streaming services, by all means give it a chance. If you can't, don't feel like you're missing anything special.