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MOVIE REVIEW: Tully

Garth Cremona (RIP)

Charlize Theron stars in this drama about a woman who is about to give birth to her third child.  One of her children is an 8-year-old girl, and the other is a 6-year-old boy who has developing signs of being on the Autism Spectrum.  The new baby arrives and while her husband loves her he is so snowed under with work that she finds the pressure of everything too much.  Her rich brother offers her a gift, a few weeks of a Night Nurse, someone to come in and take care of the new baby while she gets some much-needed sleep.

The last few years being a Theron fan have been tough, I can almost forgive the Snow White and Huntsman films, they were a bland fantasy double bill, but passable entertainment when the Nieces came over.  But it’s the Fast and Furious movie that she was in that really bothered me, why, you’ve won the Oscar, you should be doing films that move us all the time.  This year Gringo, where she basically played a comic version of her Fast and Furious character, showed that there was hope for her projects.  Tully is confirmation that given the right script and director she is the talent that we all know she is.

Tully is the name of the Night Nurse who comes in and starts to sort her life out, she’s played by Mackenzie Davis, and at first you see her as a new age nurse, but she’s just the right fit for Theron’s character.  Theron plays Marlo and it’s such a good role for her because it shows a very wide range of emotions in a short screen run time.  The pressures of having three young children while you have a basic zombie of a partner would hurt even the strongest of souls.  Her Husband Drew is just that.  He’s working hard to get ahead in his job which means a lot of trips away, and even when he gets home, he’s playing the computer games on his own in the bed room.

If you aren’t a fan of bodily fluids expelling themselves from adults and babies then this might not be the film for you.  They go to extraordinary lengths to show the warts and all lifestyle of the lower to middle classes have trying to make ends meet while keeping their heads above water.  There is a slight hint of the life that Theron had before the family but it’s never really explored fully, and that is a shame, as there were hints that she had a bright future that was stolen from her by having the husband and kids.  The first half of the film would lead you to believe that Charlize Theron is on for another Oscar and probably the same for Screenwriter Diablo Cody, but it’s after the halfway mark you start to lose track of the film a little, the talent on-screen do their best to keep things together though.

The moments of Marlo and Tully getting used to one another are some of the most shinning and often the most off-putting at the same time.  The child performers are good and not as annoying as some have been this year.  The film is also funny in parts while dealing with dramatic issues.  Making a social commentary about living in America while having children works and then they make a comment where it doesn’t quite jell.

Tully is a film where there are more good moments than bad and the performances of Theron and Davis fills in the gaps during the bad times.  The ending was smart and then the more you think of it you feel like you’ve been cheated, but then you look to see how else it could have ended, and there are few options.  I would happily pay into see this film, and for expecting parents, it’s almost essential viewing.

[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

Director: Jason Reitman
Writer: Diablo Cody
Stars: Charlize Theron, Mackenzie Davis, Mark Duplass | See full cast & crew

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Garth Cremona (RIP)
Comic book creator and movie reviewer. You can find out more at www.dublinwriter.com
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