Review of Tully (2018) by Daniel S — 09 Dec 2018

Films about parenthood that don't feel the need to wax lyrical about the magic of children are rare. This is one of them. There's only small, natural windows into the parental love. And it's all unspoken.

Most of the time is spent dealing with how grueling it is. And that's refreshing. The story of a mother of a newborn and two others hiring a night nurse to help her rest and get some sleep, everything in this feels genuine.

This is largely down to the amazing double header of performances by Charlize Theron and Mackenzie Davis, who both build their relationship warmly and realistically. The whole thing takes big left turn about an hour in, which took me hugely by surprise, but stick with it because it will all make absolute and ingenious sense by the end.

Postnatal depression is something that affects a huge amount of people for the representation it gets, so there's still a big stigma around it. Films like this, I think, do a lot to normalize it a little and make you feel a little less weird if every waking moment as a parent isn't spent glowing with the love for your offspring.

But this is also a film about growing up and evaluating your life at all stages and being positive and all kinds of stuff. It's well worth your time, even if (like me) you're often left rolling your eyes at the depiction of parenthood in movies.