Tully

Coming in way below the radar this week is the latest dramedy from the team of Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody (“Juno”). They reunite with Charlize Theron after 2011’s underrated “Young Adult” in an attempt to sway critics and audiences to come around to their unique brand of filmmaking. Interestingly, it is being advertised as the third part of a trilogy of sorts in the progression of maturity in life, but that’s a bit too esoteric for the content and tone, so I don’t buy a connection in any shape or form to the previous two films. Probably just a tactic to namedrop the collaborators.

Theron is Marlow, a pregnant mother of two young kids nearing the end of her own sanity and her third trimester. Her husband (Ron Livingston) is the stereotypically sad-sack aloof father who doesn’t seem to notice his wife drowning in the exhaustion that must be fairly typical for any mother of a newborn. Enter the godsend night nanny, Tully, who is gifted to Marlow by her concerned (and wealthy) brother, played smugly by Mark Duplass. At first, Tully (Mackenzie Davis) turns Marlow’s world upside down; cleaning, taking care of the baby, and offering carefree wisdom of a young optimist. But the two women quickly develop an unlikely bond and before long, it seems that Tully knows Marlow even better than she knows herself.

Diablo Cody burst onto the scene with “Juno” back in 2007, and it was a great movie, but the buzz around how a former stripper was able to write (gasp) a screenplay? And it was (gasp) good? A bit condescending. Stranger things have happened, and Cody hasn’t done much to impress me since.

Jason Reitman is a quirky director. Born into the industry, he was never better than “Up in the Air” and I keep holding out for a film that might reach that level of respectability. This isn’t that film. It reeks of sadness and melancholy and regret, and it really ruins the buzz of any sort of humor that is wittily thrown into the dialogue by Cody.

Charlize Theron is an absolute dynamo. One of the best actors in the business, she allegedly put on nearly fifty pounds to get in character with a steady diet of In-N-Out burgers in the middle of the night. Rough business those Hollywood folks have. She imitates life with ease, conveying such a range of emotions, but never strays from realism in this one. Much like her performance in “Young Adult,” it’s subdued and real. It’s almost too good for the film though as the plot doesn’t go anywhere interesting, yet expects a reaction at its climax. My reaction was a yawn, which saddened me almost as much as the mood of the film.

“Tully” is truly a tribute to mothers at its core. Raising a child, much less three, is a labor of love when done well, and that’s really the intended point of the film; nobody ever really knows when they’re doing it right or not, which is sad and scary and stressful and exhilarating. Theron bares her soul, but there was a distinct lack of back story development as Marlow was clearly dealing with a lot of self-doubt and unresolved past issues that weren’t adequately explained to the audience.

The film isn’t terrible, but it isn’t a feel-good film, and It certainly doesn’t inspire parenthood, or even satirize the challenges realistically. I was expecting quite a bit more from the Cody and Reitman team, and with Theron, I was yearning for a sleeper hit among the blockbuster giants. It didn’t work. Even with the intended surprise pseudo-happy ending, I just didn’t appreciate it as intended. Skip Tully, go to Starbucks. 5/10.