After I saw Atomic Blonde on its opening Thursday night showing and was clearly disappointed, my mom, who lives with me, metaphorically sat me down to share an astute observation. “You really like Charlize Theron. You always see her movies, but you rarely like them, and you still go back to see her movies.” She is correct. Anyone else would have been put on a list then banned a long time ago or at least put on the exclusively home viewing list, but I do like Theron. If her movies are not good, it isn’t usually her fault. I’m glad that I have a huge reserve of goodwill for Theron because I really enjoyed Tully.
Tully stars Theron as Marlo, a mother of three who becomes so overwhelmed by her life that she decides to accept help from a night nanny, a job that I had never heard of. A night nanny takes care of your child while you sleep, and if the baby needs to be fed, brings the baby to you in bed to feed her if you breast feed. The movie is shot beautifully and provides visual shorthands to cue the viewer into the emotional tone of the scene: warm hues for ideal moments and colder lighting before big breakdowns. The pacing of the narrative and shifting of perspective from one character’s subjective reality to another’s is perfect.
By constantly shifting, Tully manages to sympathize with all characters, though primarily Marlo, while simultaneously suggesting that there is an objective reality that they are missing in their insular, intimate narratives. For example, Marlo and her husband, Drew, played by Office Space’s Ron Livingston, have a narrative about Marlo’s brother, Craig, played by Mark Duplass, that does not seem to reflect who he really is, but appears to be a projection rooted in their insecurities. I really appreciated how money was a silent, unseen character that influenced the trajectory of the movie.
Tully also addresses gender norms in a clever way, particularly Marlo’s interaction with the school principal. The real Marlo is full of wise cracks, irreverent and macabre tidbits, but she initially wears the mask of appropriate, conciliatory femininity during points of potential conflict. When she frankly expresses her frustration, it obliterates all social norms. There is an innate frustration expressed throughout the film of the gap between the real her and the person that she is expected to be to function in society. It isn’t the movie’s job to provide an answer on how to narrow that gap and have a functioning society, but it is the central problem that Marlo faces.
Tully compares and contrasts who Marlo was, an edgy, sex positive, pan sexual wild woman versus who she is, a mother and wife taken over by her body and her relationships to others. She keenly feels the loss of her younger body and imprisoned by the needs and reduction of physical ability of this older one while simultaneously impressed by the primal miracle of creating people. There is ambiguity and loss nuanced with warm satisfaction of achieving her dream. (Side note: Theron had to work hard to put on weight to be in this movie while I effortlessly achieved the same body without having any kids. Be jealous!)
I appreciated that Tully is a diverse world with people of color in every sphere, socially and professionally, and it is just accepted as a part of life instead of being a central plot point. I don’t think that the filmmakers had a further responsibility to tackle a real life phenomenon depicted in the film. There is an implicit theme of the young white woman having a wild life, which is more diverse, LGBTQ and urban, then matures and embraces the traditional, heterosexual, suburban gender normative world. Diversity becomes a phase or is a vacation for white women, but to be an adult, the implicit rule is that you have to accept and cosign the past with slight modifications. The world hasn’t changed as much as it seems, which leads to some resentment that some women get the monikers of coolness and credibility of rebellion while actually being the bastion of establishment. How much of it is complicity or the necessity of biology (“You have the breasts”)? Do any women other than white women have this ability to retreat into respectability and have her past seen as an asset instead of a damning liability that will haunt her?
Some of the saddest elements of Tully are the loneliness of motherhood and the submersion of a mother’s identity into her children. She does not even get companionship from her husband. Theron’s face flinches in betrayal when Marlo’s husband’s casually discusses their son’s difficulty with her family, which should be a safe space, but clearly isn’t. She doesn’t want her children and herself to be problems that can be fixed, but accepted for their differences, which even she fails to do. There is a resonant scene after her son throws a tantrum, and as someone leads her son in a centering, affirming exercise, she also engages in the exercise soon thereafter, not because he needs her to model the exercise in order to follow, because he is already doing it, but because she needs it as much as he does. She is pathologically unseen and shockingly in despair and alone (except I would argue by her brother) while performance expectations are high.
Tully tackles mental disabilities, and while I think that the film did a good job, I’m on the outside looking in and am curious how those who actually share the same experiences as the characters depicted on screen feel about the portrayal. Early feedback is damning, but scarce.
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Going into the movie, I assumed that the titular character was Theron’s character’s name, but the night nanny’s name is Tully, played by Mackenzie Davis, who is what Keira Knightley would be if she was a better actor. The film is littered with oneiric imagery influenced by a reality show in which the cast has a mermaid themed party. Marlo is drowning in life, but in her dreams, she imagines a mermaid and later swimming. I feel like I subliminally knew the twist in the movie, but my rational brain kept correcting my subconscious. Tully becomes Marlo’s only friend, confidant and caretaker which rejuvenates Marlo. Marlo resumes engaging with the world under Tully’s nurturing and rediscovers the parts of herself that she loves about her current life. As Tully reveals more about her life, she seems very similar to Marlo’s description of her younger self. The twist is that Tully is Marlo’s maiden name and Marlo’s delusion.
The overall lesson is incredibly poignant and depressing: you have to be your own best friend because no one else is going to take care of you or see you like yourself, and you are less likely to accept help and the truth if you don’t come to that realization on your own. On one hand, her delusion is dangerous because in reality, Marlo isn’t resting and is doing everything, which leads to a spectacular flame out. On the other hand, her delusion is helpful because she is able to resolve her ambivalence with her identity and gradually become the person that she wants to be. The part that seemed unrealistic to me is that people with delusions tend to cling to them, not be aware that they are delusions and are not easily able to abandon them to return to real life. Delusions are generally never helpful.
I think that many viewers will miss that Marlo is not the only one in the family who is delusional. Drew is completely cut off from reality, but in a way that is socially acceptable. Drew helps with the family, but specifically chooses to help the child with the more relatable challenges. Helping is an elective, not a necessity. He creates a narrative about Craig as the problematic brother in law, and Marlo echoes his sentiment as a way to bond as a team against the better off world, but this narrative is rooted in paranoia about people judging him based on his financial status when no one ever does. His paranoia leads to him encouraging his wife not to accept help from others. The team bond dissolves once at home, and he separates himself from the team by plunging nightly into video games while she is left to deal with a baby, their son, and his expectations of how she should be coping with their situation.
I’m not saying that playing video games is pathological, but if you don’t notice that your wife is literally in free fall, I don’t think that is normal or should be considered normal just because you’re a guy. It would just be a way of self-medicating (writes the person who compulsively watches movies and TV shows) if he were aware that there was a problem, but Marlo refused to address it, or he did not know of a healthy way to navigate it. His complete surprise at his situation, given her past medical history, is the delusion. I just kept thinking of when I heard about Andrea Yates and was astonished that her husband not only did not see the danger signs, but actively ignored advice on how to deal with the situation by continuing to have kids, separating her from her community and leaving her alone with the kids even though she was diagnosed as a danger to herself and others. Just because a delusion does not necessarily have a tidy name to use as a diagnosis does not mean that it does not exist.
Tully works because Drew is not depicted as a bad guy, but his confession at the denouement acts as a subtle admonishment to the men in the audience. On some level, he knows that he can and should do better, but is eager to accept his wife’s limp permission to just focus on work, and the implicit belief that she can handle being home alone with the kids, even if he is there. Who doesn’t want to have less on their plate?
Overall, if I had to critique Tully, it is the throwaway scene with the children hanging out with a nanny in Craig’s home who is teaching them about animal cruelty in meat production. It felt like it was going to be a teaser to a later scene with the son that never comes so it should have ended up on the cutting room floor. It is not a criticism, but some poor soul in Brooklyn just got their bike stolen by the least likely suspect, a lactating suburban mom, and in the age of Citi Bike, it seems harsher.