Film Review - Tully (15)

You need a rest, mommy.

Writer Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman first teamed up to create 2007's Juno, an acerbically witty tale of teen pregnancy starring Ellen Page. Tully is an even stronger, more thoughtful piece of work, those individual talents having matured a whole decade's worth. Revisiting the fertile theme of motherhood, the film is darker than Juno but no less funny - a resonant and deeply comical cry of near-despair.

Charlize Theron plays Marlo, a suburban mother of two, with child number three imminent. Already ragged from the demands of the kids she has (particularly those of her difficult, hyperactive son), the prospect of an additional newborn is daunting. Then her annoyingly wealthy brother offers to fund the services of a 'night-nanny', a care worker who will facilitate what Marlo will soon need most - proper sleep. Initially resistant to the idea, she eventually succumbs, and one phone-call later there at her door is a young woman named Tully, the answer to all her desperate prayers. Except there's an air of mystery around Tully from the start...

Okay, that immediately makes the film out to be what Marlo herself jokes about - a Hand That Rocks the Cradle psycho-nanny horror. It's not. It's vastly more subtle than that. But the story does hinge on who the Tully character really is at heart and on what her arrival means for the frazzled mum. Their relationship sits right at the heart of this terrifically-observed story and it fairly crackles with chemistry.

Kudos first to Theron. In last year's Atomic Blonde she was a ripped and formidably fit secret agent (then a super-svelte businesswoman in Gringo); here she very literally carries the weight of later-life pregnancy, conveying exhaustion to match. It's another impressive performance that starts with the physicality and goes right to the core. Marlo's weariness is all-consuming, her descent into mental chaos steady and relentless, though allowing for mordantly funny outbursts. The tone, pre Tully's arrival, is less the demented hilarity of TV sitcom Motherland and more Babadook-style depression-anxiety, only played for grim laughs. (And never more so than in one tour de force sequence of maternal meltdown.) 

As for Tully herself, it feels like a kind of arrival for actress Mackenzie Davis. Her night-nanny is a sweetly eccentric free spirit - weirdly disarming from the start and with an indefinable spookiness underlying it all. Her arrival brings calm, but also kicks the story into a whole other gear, one where you really won't see what's coming. There's room for the guys - Ron Livingston has enough rumpled likability as husband Drew to make sure we don't get too pissed off with him, and Mark Duplass nails the smugness of brother Craig - but this is Marlo and Tully's show through and through, and their evolving relationship makes for intriguing viewing.

So filter Cody's wry and pithy dialogue through two splendid central performers and then get Reitman, with his shrewd eye for everyday detail, to lens the whole project. The result is something instantly recognisable, while utterly unique.

Gut Reaction: Engaged, amused, fascinated and unnerved. But my reactions were nothing to those of the mums in the audience. Their appreciation got seriously vocal.

Where Are the Women?: The girls own this one of course.

Ed's Verdict: 8/10. I liked Juno and I really liked this. A great convergence of talents, with Theron more impressively immersed in her role than ever before. And that's saying a lot.