“Tully”: a cruel comedy about motherhood with Charlize Theron from the director of the film “Juno”
The film Jason Reitman "Tully" - about the difficult life of the mother of three children. Charlize Theron performed the lead role. I believe that this picture, resembling a black comedy, a fairy tale, was a great success for the director and the actress.
“Tully” belongs to the category of films that is offensive to the critic, which is impossible to write about, since the plot is based on a sudden climax turn, the so-called twist. You open it inadvertently - they recognize it as a monster, if you do not open it - there’s nothing to talk about.
Therefore, you have to take the main thing on faith: after a couple of unsuccessful passing pictures, Canadian Jason Reitman, one of the cutest independent directors, is back in shape. Maybe because he returned to cooperation with the screenwriter talisman Diablo Cody, and at the same time to the actress Charlize Theron. From the first, they together did the best for both the film "Juno". The second starred in Young Adult, also on the script of Cody: it was the last Reitman film favorably received by the public.
“Tully” (the name of the film is the female name) is the perfect film of the #MeToo era (a hashtag campaign against sexual harassment and harassment against women, which began in October 2017) and other human rights movements of the current wave of feminism. Perhaps even too perfect. It seems that the picture was taken in confirmation of the conventional thesis about motherhood as a form of social violence against women.
The main character, Marlo (played by Charlize Theron), is a mother of two children, a secluded girl and a hysterical boy, constantly on the verge of leaving a decent school. Marlo is also pregnant with the third, and now she has a charming child, who cries constantly, not giving her mother any sleep or peace. Her life is rapidly turning into hell. While the good-natured, but hubby, detached from household chores, quietly walks to work, Marlo is knocked out of her last strength. She ceases to look after herself and is afraid to look in the mirror; everything hurts her, she does not think anything, a nervous breakdown awaits around the corner. Of course, others do not think to spare her, and when they offer help, it looks like a sophisticated mockery. For example, a well-off and annoyingly carefree brother wants to pay for a nanny coming at night to let Marlowe sleep — and she is furious: is she so hard now and now they are offering to give the child to someone else's aunt?
In the first third of the film, the viewer will have to fight with conflicting emotions - pity, disgust and laughter, although there seems to be nothing to laugh at. Reitman and Cody do not spare the heroine, mercilessly ridiculing her tragic situation. However, this, of course, is a fraudulent move. As far as the beginning of “Tully” resembles a tough black comedy on the verge of a foul (it seems that the heroine falling asleep on the move is about to smack into a pole in the middle of the freeway, falling asleep at the wheel and ruining all the children at once), so the continuation resembles a magical and unexpectedly sweet tale.
One night the nanny will knock on the door one night - her name is Tully - and exhausted Marlo will immediately surrender to the mercy of a stranger. Life will be transformed immediately. Returns sleep, appetite, interest in life and attention to yourself. From the most miserable creature in the world, she turns into a strong, intelligent, self-ironic and beautiful woman. At this moment, we cease to admire the actor's feat of 42-year-old Charlize Theron, which we have not seen since the days of “Monster”, and we begin to admire one of the most beautiful Hollywood actresses.
Young and charming Mackenzie Davis (she plays Tully) is acting like Tharon in everything, but do not rush to consider this a disadvantage of the film: it was intended. If Marlo is an ordinary adult woman, loaded with well-known problems, then Tully is a wonderful creature, a mermaid from Marlo's dreams or junk shows that she watches at night. Cinema should not be a social manifesto - it has other functions similar to the tasks of a night nurse: soothe, lull, comfort. Beginning as a horror story about the impossibility of being the mother of three children and leading a normal life at the same time, by the end of the day “Tully” turns into a pacifying anthem to family values.
Western critics, in general, positively assessing the new work by Reitman and Cody, criticize the picture for excessive conceptuality: they say, we have before us a naked script idea that lacks cinematic flesh and persuasiveness. But it is worth peering into the film to be convinced of the opposite: just the dramaturgy here suffers with schematism and untidiness (for example, we learn about the problematic son Marlo so much that we completely forget about the existence of her daughter, and the husband remains almost abstract ), but the acting effort and lively intonation hide shortcomings and allow you to get carried away by the strange relationships of two heroines.
The irony is that “Tully” turns out to be a kind of “Juno” paraphrase; even the headlines, two strange female names, as if rhyming. That picture was about a young couple not ready to become parents - despite the public consensus, the authors elicited sympathy for them and approved their choice: to abandon the child. The new film, despite the encouraging finale, is much darker. It is about the doom (at least female) to perform a certain social function. According to the director and scriptwriter, the only way to be treated for this is to fantasize about the impossible, escape from reality. Well, after all the cinema was invented for it. Even the most independent.