It’s complicated
‘Tully’ entertaining, funny and not (entirely) what it appears
“Tully” is almost exactly the movie you expect it to be. And then it isn’t. For most of its largely entertaining hour and a half, “Tully” is the film promised in its appealing trailer. It’s a smart comedydrama, one chock full of insight about the trials and tribulations of marriage and parenthood. It’s a compelling, relatable story about a mother entering the middle of her existence who’s struggling to keep everything in her increasingly messy life together and the nanny who arrives on the scene and quickly appears be a godsend. And then it isn’t. It’s something else. To say what Tully ultimately is — or perhaps, simply, where “Tully” ultimately leads — would, of course, be to spoil the fun. Just know its conclusion could be polarizing.
Fortunately, whether you appreciate the ending or despise it shouldn’t matter all that much. There is so much to like — from the performances of Charlize Theron and Mackenzie Davis to the now-familiar sensibilities of the “Juno” and “Young Adult” filmmaking duo of Diablo Cody (writer) and Jason Reitman (director) — that the final stretch of “Tully” doesn’t define the film.
We first meet a very pregnant Marlo (Theron) when she’s therapeutically brushing the skin of her 5-year-old son, Jonah (Asher Miles Fallica), who has dramatic, anxiety-driven episodes. While people around Marlo politely refer to the boy as “quirky,” Jonah is in danger of being too much of a drain on his teacher at his private school to remain there.
Meanwhile, 8-year-old Sarah (Lia Frankland) is quiet and, Marlo believes, entering into a phase girls sometimes go through in which they’re very hard on themselves.
Marlo has a seemingly loving husband, Drew (Ron Livingston), who helps with the kids but prefers to lie on the bed locked into a first-person-shooter video game.
When the third baby, daughter Mia, arrives, the juggling act becomes too much for Marlo. She begins to reconsider a gift her wealthy brother, Jay (Mark Duplass), offers early on in “Tully”: a night nanny. This person would come to the house and watch over the newborn while Marlo sleeps, waking her when it is time to breastfeed Mia. Jay says he knows it sounds like something for rich people — and that maybe it is — but he doesn’t want to see a repeat of what happened when Jonah was born, hinting at a bout of depression for Marlo. (While Drew doesn’t hate the idea of the night nanny, he in general can’t stand Jay and is content to go along with his wife’s opposition to allowing some other woman to spend bonding time with her child.)
However, near a breaking point, Marlo relents, and one night Tully (Davis) pops in the house wearing an outfit that, if not downright skimpy, is playful and certainly a little revealing. Marlo looks her up and down, wearing a facial exprerssion that suggests she doesn’t want this beautiful 26-year-old woman around her husband. (Thank goodness, though, this is not a movie about man’s desire for the younger woman suddenly in his home. That, after all, would be treading, if lightly, on “Juno” territory.)
Tully is a free spirit, a woman full of enthusiasm and facts — useless and otherwise — and isn’t confined by all the rules of life weighing down Marlo. While the whole Tully package seems to turn off Marlo initially, Tully shows a real interest in helping her and quickly proves to be invaluable to Marlo. The latter notes that for the first time in a long time she’s getting solid sleep, and Drew notices a real difference in her.
A story must have conflict, though, and that will come in “Tully” after the pair grow very close and Tully seems to grow increasingly casual in this business arrangement, showing up late, grabbing food out of the refrigerator and even suggesting the two of them get into the pitcher of sangria she sees Marlo has made.
Would like to say more but, you know, can’t.
What should be said is that this is another very fine performance by Theron, possibly even surpassing what she gave Cody-Reitman in “Young Adult.” Just as she did to portray a serial killer in the acclaimed 2004 film “Monster,” a performance that earned her a best-actress Academy Award, Theron packed on the pounds to portray this mother of three. (“Mommy, what’s wrong with your body?” Sarah asks Marlo at the dinner table after Mom has to remove her shirt following a food spill.) Theron brings much more than weight gain to the role, of course, but it is an extra step that shows her commitment to the film. This is a far different Theron from the sexy, butt-kicking version we saw in last year’s fun “Atomic Blonde.”
Davis — who had a small role in last year’s “Blade Runner: 2049” and was one of the reason’s AMC’s “Halt and Catch Fire” was so compelling for its four seasons — doesn’t have to do the figurative (or literal) heavy lifting Theron does, but she, too, is good in “Tully.” We need to like Tully — and, more importantly, believe Marlo would like her — for the story to work. And, really, this modern-day Mary Poppins seems almost too good to be true.
In her script, Cody draws on her experiences from using a night nanny a couple of years ago after she gave birth to a third child. According to the film’s production notes, the use of a night nanny has been an increasingly popular idea over the last decade, and, like her “Tully” protagonist, she initially resisted it but now calls the experience “revelatory.”
To her credit, a couple of moments that don’t quite add up or feel right initially make more sense when it’s all said and done. However — again, we’re trying to purposely vague here — there probably is a storytelling cheat or two done to make “Tully” work as designed.
It helps that Cody had her trusty sidekick at the helm. Reitman obviously gets the writer’s sensibilities and again has helped her bring memorable characters to the screen. Reitman’s pacing is nice, and, more importantly, he helps Cody drop a few hints as to where we are being led.
Still, it’s tough to see where “Tully” is taking us for a long time.
And then, eventually, it isn’t.