Runtime: 1 hour, 36 minutes
Rating: R
Director: Jason Reitman
Quick Impressions:
I liked Juno but somehow missed the second collaboration of writer Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman, Young Adult. I remember hearing at the time that it was depressing (which is not why I didn’t see it), but star Charlize Theron must not have found the experience depressing because she decided to work with Reitman and Cody again on Tully, and she gained fifty pounds for the part. That’s not the kind of thing one does lightly. When an actress who has already won an Oscar gains fifty pounds for a role, she must really believe in the project.
Trust me, it’s not easy to lose fifty pounds. I’ve been trying to do it for the past twenty years. All I ever do is lose thirty-five pounds, slowly reset, and repeat. Fifty pounds is a lot of weight. (It’s not even easy to gain fifty pounds, honestly! Even when I was pregnant, I gained only ten, despite radical and potentially permanent changes to the shape of my body!) Theron’s said that losing the weight took her a year and a half, and I’m sure she had the help of personal trainers and good genetics. The only easy way to lose fifty pounds I can think of is to take two active toddlers to Disney World! (And that’s fifty pounds you’d want back!)
My mother always tells the story of how Shelley Winters deliberately gained weight for The Poseidon Adventure and then regretted for the rest of her life that she could never lose it again. (If you ask me, though, Winters made the right decision because her character’s big moment is the best part of that movie, and she probably would have put on some weight as she got older, anyway.)
But any adult woman who gains fifty pounds on purpose surely realizes what she’s risking. (Think of poor Carrie Fisher stressing about becoming as thin as they wanted her for the Star Wars sequels! Can you think of an interview where she didn’t mention that?)
If an actress over thirty (and Theron is over forty) gains fifty pounds for a role, then you know at least one person believed the movie was going to be really good.
And Tully is a really good movie. I personally liked it better than Juno. Well…Juno is more enjoyable to watch, actually, but I think Tully is the stronger film.
For some reason, you see, society has been lying to us girls for years. Despite what we’ve always seen in family sitcoms and movies and magazines, being a new mother is hard. The whole process is graphic, intense, and sometimes traumatic. (Even if your L&D experience goes well, you’re going to be wearing giant pads that might as well be diapers. Even with a c-section, that’s necessary. That’s normal. It’s what’s supposed to happen.) Honestly, almost nothing is done to prepare us for this unique life experience. It’s like the last bastion of “polite” censorship, this veil that is drawn over what really happens to you when you carry, deliver, and care for a new baby. (And it’s not easy for new dads either, by the way.)
I love children so much, but I’m terrible at the whole thing, conception forward. Carrying the child is where I’m the worst. The only one of my children whose gestation was easy for me is my stepson (for obvious reasons). My daughter was born at twenty-five weeks. Why? Nobody knows! My son I carried to term through every illness imaginable, a subchorionic hemorrhage, and a great deal of psychiatric distress. When he was born, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. I was terrified they’d find something wrong and steal him away to the NICU where my daughter had spent her first one-hundred days. (We had a very positive NICU experience, so I’m not sure why that terrified me.) Then I began suffering a little post partum depression and a lot of post partum mania. He cried round the clock because I had an inadequate milk supply, but my had daughter had never latched on like he did, so I didn’t recognize the problem. I was terrified to put him down away from me to sleep, sure he would die, and equally terrified to fall asleep holding him, sure he would die. So I didn’t sleep. At night I saw faces of dead babies reflected in the windows and television screen. I was already on medication, so these semi-hallucinations made me feel helpless and terrified. Late at night, I “hallucinated” phantom music only I could hear. Months later, I learned that my next door neighbors had been in the middle of an ugly divorce, so the husband had taken to falling asleep listening to the radio in the garage. My husband doesn’t hear well, so the music probably was real, after all. But the worry that I was having auditory hallucinations further shook me. And then I started developing inexplicable physical symptoms that were frightening and required extensive medical testing by specialists.
Not everyone has an experience like this, certainly, but more women’s childbirth experiences deviate from their birth plan than I’d realized until I became a mother and began talking to other mothers. And a lot of women have post partum depression. A lot. And even for those who don’t, motherhood takes a lot of work. It’s worth it. (Trust me, I’d have more children if I could carry them. I love hanging out with my kids so much.) But it’s still stressful and exhausting, particularly if you don’t get much help. I’m lucky. I have an incredibly supportive husband and family. Not everyone does.
The Good:
If this all sounds rather grim to you, then you might not like this movie. My husband spent the first half of the movie all white-knuckled and shifty. By the second half, he had progressed to making unintentional noises of concern. He was pretty much stressed out for the duration of the entire movie. When it was over, he said with a sigh, “That was a little too familiar. It was almost a traumatic experience, like it almost gave me PTSD watching.”
I was like, “Yeah, no kidding.”
Here’s something funny, though. I actually had the ending of the movie spoiled for me weeks ago when an article ostensibly unrelated to the film abruptly spat out the entire ending in one unexpected sentence. (What a rotten ambush!)
But while we were watching, I was just as stressed out and worried as my husband. I just had a slightly different set of concerns. (There is one way I am absolutely terrified I may die because if it happens, I will have no way to stop it. I’ll feel it happening, and I’ll have no way to stop it. This has been a horror of mine since college when I was afraid it was happening, and I was afraid it might happen to Charlize Theron’s character in this film. It sounds like such a harmless thing. For most people, it’s a very easy thing to fix. It could never possibly reach the point of being lethal. But Theron’s Marlo isn’t most people, and I was terrified for her.)
But the first part of the movie is really stressful no matter who you are, and it’s intended to be. If nothing else, even if you don’t like the movie, you’ll leave it with a greater appreciation for mothers and how much they often have on their plate.
One thing that adds to the general sensation of stress is the most intense shaky cam I’ve seen since Speed 2. That’s not a joke, and it’s not hyperbole. Speed 2 is notable for two things, 1) a lack of Keanu Reeves and 2) shaky cam. Over the years, audiences’ memories have faded. Some people have probably even forgotten that Keanu Reeves didn’t return for the sequel. But if you saw the movie, I’m sure you remember the shaky cam.
This is just as bad. The characters are practically rolling all over the screen like there’s a hurricane (like the yacht scene in The Wolf of Wallstreet), and they’re not even on a boat. They’re in locations like “the principal’s office” or “a couch”. I’m recovering from an inner ear infection, so the motion was right on the brink of making me nauseated. (I feel like I’ve said similar things about another movie recently, but this is worse.)
“What’s with all this shaky cam?” I whispered to my husband. It looked like videos the kids and I make in the park using my phone.
This annoyed me for a while. Then I forgot about it. And then suddenly, about halfway through, I gasped and whispered to my husband, “Did the camera stop being shaky?”
Then I realized that the camera work was mirroring the character’s interior state. As she became more calm, it became less shaky. And just like that, my inner jeers became applause. What a great way to immerse us is the protagonist’s world. A+, Tully.
Diablo Cody’s script is clever, intelligent, sympathetic to real families, and (very) darkly funny, but what really makes Tully work are exceptionally strong performances by Charlize Theron and Mackenzie Davis. Of course, it’s no surprise that Theron is a great actress, but it’s still worth saying that without her, this movie would not work. She gives a very powerful, very real performance. Her work here is quite moving, thoroughly convincing, and honestly kind of touching. How do I put this? It’s kind of Charlize Theron to care about the difficulties so many women undergo. She doesn’t have to care. I mean, obviously she is a woman herself. But she’s also a rich and famous star who has always been and will always be exceptionally beautiful. But you can’t play a role like this successfully without giving so much of yourself to it. She was willing to gain fifty pounds and go to a very dark place (almost as dark as Dark Places). It’s one thing to be temporarily ugly for an Oscar. It’s another to embrace averageness to show the beauty and worthiness of imperfection.
And Mackenzie Davis is an absolute joy to watch. I remember her mainly as the corporeal half of Blade Runner 2049‘s shimmery sex scene. She’s fantastic as Tully, so bubbly and giving of her energy, just perfect for the part. She makes the movie fun to watch, finally. When Davis’s Tully arrives, we can finally relax a little and enjoy ourselves (which is the whole point).
Though less essential than the two female leads, child actor Asher Miles Fallica is just fantastic as Jonah, Marlo’s “quirky” son who really seems to be on the autism spectrum though they’re having trouble getting a diagnosis (another realistic element of the film). The scene in which he kicks the car seat and then completely cheers up with tears still in his eyes is so perfectly played.
I also really liked Gameela Wright as the principal. (I think she’s the principal. She might have a slightly different title, but, anyway, she’s in charge.) I watched and thought, “This is why I’m glad I’m not a principal.” I was also very sympathetic to the character (while simultaneously sympathetic to Marlo). What the principal is saying is never easy to hear, but she’s telling the truth. State funded schools have more resources, and there are places better equipped to help special needs children than small religious schools (especially when the school doesn’t want to try. A school that doesn’t want to teach your child is never the right school). Still, I don’t envy Marlo’s herculean task of trying to find that magical place that’s best for Jonah since discovering the answer is so child specific it might as well be a grail quest.
Ron Livingston is good as Marlo’s husband, though I found the character frustrating (as intended). My husband said it best. “In the past, I would have disliked that character, but now I feel sorry for him.” I agree. We all have our coping strategies, and he’s not unloving, just…tired? Really his behavior seems ridiculously stupid to me, the one potential plot hole in the whole thing…except that it’s just too easy to believe. Dads need their downtime, too. (He seems to suffer from serious denial, though, or at least misinformation, an inability to appreciate his circumstances.)
And then there’s Mark Duplass playing Craig, Marlo’s self-centered, braggart brother (as Marlo and Drew seem to think of him) or (as he should be rightfully described in my opinion) the one adult in the movie who loves Marlo and behaves responsibly. I do not get all the negative feelings towards Craig. As far as I’m concerned, he’s done nothing but show genuine concern for his sister and provide a realistic solution to a very likely and serious problem. His wife (Elaine Tan) is a little prickly, admittedly, but it’s quite possible that even she means relatively well.
Best Scene:
My husband and I both teared up during the “tree” exercise at Jonah’s new school.
I also really loved the conversation Marlo’s brother and sister-in-law have as they leave her hospital room after she’s given birth. Seeing their point of view made me realize how much of what we knew about them was just someone else’s point of view.
Also great is the nurse’s reply when Drew talks about his children being “unsupervised.”
Best Action Sequence:
This isn’t really an action movie, but there’s a bicycle chase that morphs into a drive that really had us on the edge of our seats.
Best Scene Visually:
I liked the scene of the spilled milk, which is also in the trailer. The way your heart sinks when you spill breast milk that you’ve just pumped is something you don’t understand until you experience it, no matter how often you hear about it from others. It’s funny now, but if you really need that milk…
The opening scene is also memorable visually. It’s mystifying and disorienting. Easy to see, yet hard to understand. Actually I kind of freaked out a little, thinking, “Am I supposed to be brushing my son? I haven’t been doing that. Is that a thing that needs to be done?” I’m not always up on fashion and grooming trends. I only recently discovered kids’ scented detangler.
Most Relatable Joke:
Being required to urinate–the proper amount at the proper time–is one of those things you forget about childbirth. This scene made me laugh in recognition. But then I was also sort of horrified at the way Marlo treats the nurse. I can’t imagine behaving that way to a nurse!
Best Joke:
This movie frequently drew laughter from the audience, though it’s hard to consider it a comedy. Without question, though, the funniest joke is the meta one running through the whole thing. My husband laughed and called out (in whisper) a detail about Marlo in her final scene with her son. Pay attention to what she tells her brother in the tikki bar.
The Negatives:
This movie is intense and stressful and sometimes depressing. If you haven’t had a child, I have no idea how you would react. But if these events are at all familiar to you, there’s a good chance you’ll spend much of Tully stressed out and haunted by memories.
For what it’s worth, though, I had very difficult pregnancies, and I did not experience any actual PTSD-like trauma while watching this film. I felt weirdly detached from that part. The memories I recalled felt extremely distant, not vivid. My husband seemed more stressed than I was. So maybe there should be a very specific trigger warning. Expect this film to induce mild feelings of panic and distress if you have ever been married to me.
The first part of the film is extremely stressful, though. It is designed to be. We are meant to feel Marlo’s stress, and we do. We really do.
Really, the only bad thing I can say about Tully is that it’s not always fun to watch. It’s not relaxing, and it may give you motion sickness.
But as a person who has dealt with some of these same issues, I didn’t find it gimmicky or trivializing or exploitative.
Overall:
Charlize Theron and Mackenzie Davis are fantastic in Tully, another strong collaboration by Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman who obviously work well together. One word of caution, though, if you are a new parent looking to blow off steam on a much needed date night, see something else.