Review of Tallulah (2016) by Erich — 27 Jan 2019

I agree with the reviewer who loved the ending. That last scene (which I won’t describe, for fear of “spoiling” the movie) is a daring stroke of surrealism for a movie that is otherwise solidly realistic, but for some ineffable reason, it just felt so right -- a wonderful moment of unexplainable transcendence that would not have worked had the director, Sian Heder, not evoked it with such tender mastery.

It comes as an unexpected climax to the rest of the realism of the movie, flawlessly realized throughout by the principal actors, Ellen Page and Allison Janney. Usually I find Ellen Page annoyingly smug; but in this movie she uses that part of her persona to excellent effect, and also shows a side of her that betokens a true actress.

Allison Janney I recall from the series "West Wing" and this movie proves to be a subtly sublime vehicle for her to demonstrate a great range of emotions and dimensions of humanity. The scene with the turtle -- which also I will not spoil by describing -- was a masterful juxtaposition of the ridiculously mundane and the searingly poignant.

We detect the invisible hand of the director here, Sian Heder, wisely letting Janney unfold that moment as a painful flower of insight into the pathetic paradox of a woman who has made a book-writing career out of helping other women handle relationships & divorce, yet unable to apply the same self-help to help herself in her own pathetic life.

This paradox is deepened in the relationship of Janney to the messed up young woman played by Page who flaunts her inability to help herself, indulging in a careless nihilism about life -- and yet as Janney helps her, the girl helps Janney, and they form a bond of finding their own strengths in each other.

And at the heart of it all is the helpless baby whom Page has "adopted" -- a helpless infant girl that draws out the strength of all three helpless women (the real mother, an alcoholic loser, well played by Tammy Blanchard, along with Page and Janney).

Four helpless females floundering, finding themselves somehow in the seemingly random events that intertwine them together.