Tully
Postpartum Drama | 96 Minutes | 2018 | United States
(3.5/4)
Director: Jason Reitman | Producers: Aaron L. Gilbert, Jason Reitman, Helen Estabrook, Diablo Cody, Mason Novick, Charlize Theron, A.J. Dix, Beth Kono | Writer: Diablo Cody | Starring: Charlize Theron, Mackenzie Davis, Ron Livingston, Mark Duplass | Music: Rob Simonsen | Cinematography: Eric Steelberg | Editor: Stefan Grube
Tully is the third collaboration between director Jason Reitman and writer Diablo Cody, following on from Juno (2007) and Young Adult (2011). All three films deal with the role of women as child-bearers, looking in turn at teenage pregnancy and adoption, miscarriage, and postpartum depression, which in this case borders on psychosis and owes something to extant patterns of exhaustion and stress. They ask, in the face of societal expectations and physical and mental trauma, the extent to which these women may persevere, pulling through while maintaining some semblance of self.
While Juno held together thanks to the clear-eyed performance of Ellen Page, its young lead – capably supported by Michael Cera, her sensitive, golden-shorted love interest, Jennifer Garner, adoptive mother in waiting, and J. K. Simmons and Allison Janney as Juno’s forthright but dependable parents – still it was a little bit twee in everything from its title sequences to music choices, excessive to the point of imposing on the film, while its arguments in the realms of abortion and adult male delinquency were so loaded that on repeated viewings, the fun began to wear thin. Lessons learned, Young Adult is one of the best films of the decade, but its refusal to give anyone their comeuppance in the final act – its manner of talking itself out of a conclusion, which is something each of us do all of the time – meant that it alienated much of its audience, eager to know what to expect.
Like Young Adult, Tully is sloppy and raw, it can be searingly honest, and it is anchored by another fearless performance from Charlize Theron, who gained almost fifty pounds for the role. It takes more of a genre approach to its subject matter, with some of the same sharp dialogue and a broad range of comedy encompassing the observational, the ironic, and the slapstick, here tuned in the direction of psychological drama: there are dream sequences and sequences which play out with the murky underwater logic of dreams, and while it ends up in a different place at times it willingly shares its borders with cult classics like The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and Rosemary’s Baby. Together Cody and Reitman work in bold outlines with a naturalistic human core: if Juno was at least Pixarified if not quite Disneyfied, and Young Adult possessed the veneer of a pulpy comic book, Tully by contrast is a graphic novel, an etched macabre.
Tully opens with a violet-amber glow. Marlo (Charlize Theron) is the mother of two children, a nerdy and precocious daughter and a son with a developmental disorder, hitherto undiagnosed: he’s probably on the autism spectrum, in a fit of pique at being forced to change schools Marlo describes him as ‘retarded’, and each night before bed according to the Wilbarger Protocol his skin has to be carefully, lovingly, but laboriously brushed. With her husband Drew (Ron Livingston), Marlo is expecting her third baby, and when it arrives amid snapshots of incessant exhaustion, she takes up her brother’s suggestion and hires a night nanny, so that she might at least get some rest. Tully (Mackenzie Davis) proves indispensable. She not only cares for the baby but tidies and bakes, allowing Marlo to present herself to the world anew, as coping and organised and genial, the cookie cutter exemplar of an ideal mother. Marlo has found a friend, she has found a companion, she has regained control of her life, or so it seems, because it turns out that Tully too is dependent.
Perhaps Tully does pull back just a bit in the final stages, suggesting that with a little awareness and understanding and the sharing of tasks, postpartum depression and even some of the symptoms of autism are passing phases which can ultimately be addressed. Perhaps some will demur over its depiction of psychosis, or over what it implies about youth and the continuity of self. But this is the story of one woman, and one family, which unravels organically and leaves the audience guessing. It manages to lay bare something about the harshness of motherhood, with warmth and wit and cinematic vigour at the same time as its portrait feels keenly intimate. It is one of the sharpest, least stilted non-literary depictions of doubling. Theron and Davis allow us to trace a rare kind of chemistry, and Livingston comes through as Drew when he realises his laxity, the extent to which Marlo has been burdened and strained.
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