An occupational therapist in a mental hospital falls in love with a patient, Lilith, and then becomes the victim of her aberrations.
“As you watch Lilith, you can believe how difficult and distressing the film was to make. Indeed, it's a reminder of a time, not so long ago, when the movies were not completely afraid of uncomfortable material. But Robert Rossen's last picture is still unduly neglected. It is Gothic, poetic and dream-like; its view of madness as organic disturbance is as romantic as the water imagery and the conception of a Lilith as radiant as Jean Seberg. But the power of the movie grows not just out of her performance, or the gradually disclosed disorder in Warren Beatty's uneasy hero. It is also a matter of the drugged countryside, the jittery community of the asylum, and of a world beyond not much happier or controlled.
“When the film was made, few filmgoers were familiar with Gene Hackman and Jessica Walter--so disturbing a married couple. Kim Hunter gave one of the several remarkable but unrelated performances she has put on the screen. Peter Fonda has never before or since indicated such sensitivity. And there are other memorable appearances by Anne Meacham, James Patterson, Rene Auberjonois and Lucy Smith. All that in addition to two of the most elusive stars in modern American pictures, maybe not happy working together, but reaching into their own guarded depths.” David Thomson