Movie Reviews

Movie Review: “Tully” Is A Magical Train That Derails

[yasr_overall_rating]
 

The film is about Marlo, a mother of three including a newborn, who is gifted a night nanny by her brother. Hesitant to the extravagance at first, Marlo comes to form a unique bond with the thoughtful, surprising and sometimes challenging young nanny named Tully.

Director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody teamed up for a third movie, this time about a mother of three on the brink of losing herself to motherhood. Their first movie, “Juno,” was a mesmerizing look at pregnancy through the eyes of teenagers. “Young Adult” also featured Charlize Theron but as a young woman looking for love. I want to give this third movie “Tully” five stars because the movie so accurately portrays the difficulties of giving up oneself to care for small children. Three stars are fair though, for this film derails in the last ten minutes in a bizarre train wreck.

Marlo (Charlize Theron) and husband Drew (Ron Livingston) are expecting their third baby. With one daughter at an awkward stage and a “quirky” son whose eccentricities have not yet been labeled, Marlo is well over the brink of disaster. While a well-meaning “nice guy,” Drew (Ron Livingston) lives in his own little bubble orbiting around his wife instead of on the same planet. He fails to see the chaos another pregnancy and baby wreak on his wife’s body and brain. Marlo’s brother Craig (Mark Duplass) and his picture-perfect wife know all about the trials of baby number three and offer to get their poorer relation a night nanny to help take away some strain of her daily life. Despite her brother’s and sister-in-law’s condescending display of money and perfect life in general, Tully takes the phone number knowing her husband will be away on business trips leaving her alone with their little soul-suckers.

After a freak-out at her son’s school, Tully realizes she has not only lost her cool but driven over it multiple times. She breaks down and calls the number for the night nanny. Director Ivan Reitman tackles the broken first few weeks of a newborn’s life with an all too real broken record scene of changing diapers, breastfeeding, rocking the baby, lather, rinse, repeat. Charlize has never looked less glamorous than she does as a typical mother recovering from birth. Then the nanny, Tully (Mackenzie Davis), shows up in a midriff top and throwback ’80s jeans to save the night. She cuddles the baby, cleans layers of toys and grime off the floor, and even bakes monster cupcakes. Tully finds a human woman in the mess that is Marlo and revives her. Marlo begins to function and enjoy life again as Tully bridges the gaps she was too short to cover.

Life is beautiful again as Tully guides Marlo back to life until the beloved night nanny announces she needs to follow her free-spirit ways, she had helped Marlo as much as possible. Marlo is not ready to relinquish her human sanity, and the girls bond one more time over a night in Marlo’s old glory days in Brookline for drinks and head-banging music. Then the film derails. I won’t say anymore but to mention a few trippy dream sequences about mermaids and leave the rest to your imagination. Perhaps the goal was to display the lies we tell to ourselves and how they will eventually catch up with us, but the ending fell too far into the surreal to be effective.

Charlize Theron thrives as a falling-apart victim of motherhood. Her depiction of Marlo is painful in its truthful representation of a saggy mom belly and droopy nipples and as a she-banshee unleashing her fury on her young. It is the youthful representation of the hippy night nanny Tully that is disturbing in her depth and wisdom. How can someone with so little life experience exude meaning? The answer to that question comes but not the way you expect. The merit of Marlo’s story comes from the honesty of how difficult life is because of the mundane moments that often overshadow the extraordinary moments. Unfortunately for Tully, the unrealistic overthrew the otherwise extraordinary story.

In theaters May 4th

 

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