‘Tully’s’ goal is showing the ‘other’ side of being a mom
Every mom needs an escape. For Marlo (Charlize Theron), the frazzled mother of three in “Tully,” it’s reruns of male-escort reality show “Gigolos.” Theron shares a similar affinity for trash TV with her friend, screenwriter Diablo Cody (Juno), both parents to young kids.
“I love reality television. I find that sometimes it’s a really good acting teacher, just observing people,” Theron said. “I go back and forth with all the ‘(Real) Housewives.’ I really like ‘Sister Wives’ — Diablo and I have a real connection on that show. Every time we see each other, we’re like, ‘Oh, my God, did you see Janelle at the wedding?’ ”
“Tully,” which opens in theaters Friday, reunites the pair with “Young Adult” director Jason Reitman for a story about a married, middle-class mom at the end of her rope after the birth of a newborn: feeling incompetent, lethargic and undersexed as she tends to spilled breast milk and toddler tantrums. But her life changes when her wealthy brother (Mark Duplass) gifts her a night nanny, Tully (Mackenzie Davis), who comes in the wee hours to assist with the baby and household chores, and ultimately helps Marlo feel more like herself.
Cody, 39, wrote the film shortly after the arrival of her third child as a sort of wish-fulfillment fantasy, imagining what it’d be like to have “somebody just come along and relieve all those burdens,” she said. While she had seen many depictions of the so-called “control-freak mom” in movies and TV, she wanted to explore “the other side of that coin, which is a mom who is so distracted and underwater that she accidentally bangs the baby’s car seat into the wall or drops her phone on the baby while she’s changing her diaper.”
Theron, 42, read the script when son Jackson, now 6, was 4, and daughter August, 2, was just 6 months old. “She had just moved out of my room and was sleeping through the night on her own, and I was like, ‘Oh, this is amazing,’ ” Theron said.
Although she adopted both kids and raises them as a single mom, she could relate to Marlo’s initial reluctance to get a nanny, in fear of being labeled a “bad parent.”
When it was only Jackson, “it was all-consuming, but it was fine — I could really sacrifice my entire life just for this baby,” Theron said. But when August arrived, she said, “you’re doing the same thing, and on top of that, you have to be a real person to this (other) little human who can talk and is expecting things from you. There were moments when that was just too hard and I couldn’t do it.”
Cody felt similarly insecure after she became a mother: “I am a (lousy) cook; I’m not good at the day-to-day domestic work of parenting,” she admitted. “I’ve definitely felt like less of a woman for needing help with those things.”
With “Tully,” she wanted to rail against “this highly curated Instagram world of, ‘Which mom looks best in her bikini two hours after giving birth?’ I hate that that’s happened — everyone’s life looks cute when you throw a filter on it. So I’m taking this as an opportunity to show another side of things.”