“Tully” Review

Juno director Jason Reitman’s new film Tully paints a very grounded picture of motherhood, in all its beauty and ugliness. I honestly didn’t expect much going into this film, but I left with a very surprised reaction to the unpredictable story and endearing characters.

Charlize Theron plays Marlo, a woman who is about to welcome a third child into her world. The amount of attention that each child requires from her forces her into a desperate bind, eventually calling upon a night nanny by the name of Tully.

The first 2/3rds of the movie are relatively cookie cutter indie drama stuff. There’s your expected amount of quirkiness, and a lot of time spent on the characters talking to each other and fleshing out their personalities. It isn’t until the last third of the movie that takes a very interesting and different take on motherhood, that was actually quite refreshing to see. Reitman and writer Diablo Cody do a fantastic job turning a typical family drama on its head, and the result is an unexpected memorable movie that really came out of left field for me.

Theron continues to show that she is one of Hollywood’s best actors, and that she is capable of taking on any role that she gets herself into. Tully, played by Mackenzie Davis, was a bit hit and miss throughout, because I got the impression that sometimes she was playing up more of a exaggerated persona than an actual human being. Regardless, the chemistry between the two of them made for an entertaining watch, but Theron will definitely get some love for her performance come award season.

This is definitely a movie you don’t want spoiled for yourself. It was surprising in many ways: surprisingly funny, surprisingly relatable, and…just outright surprising in the final act of the film. I don’t think this film is going to blow anyone away, but it’s definitely going to leave an impression. It starts out a bit slow, but the payoff will be sweet if you are patient.

Grade: B/77

“Avengers: Infinity War”

The biggest movie of the year is finally here. I was able to catch it this past weekend, and I just have to give myself a small pat on the back for going into it without having anything spoiled for me. With that being said, there’s a lot of stuff going on in this film. Ten years of Marvel movies have built up to this film; the big showdown with the biggest baddie in the Marvel universe.

I couldn’t believe how disappointing it was. This was easily the most disappointing Marvel movie I’ve seen so far. That doesn’t necessarily make it the worst, and it’s definitely not. I could name a couple movies off the top of my head that I found worse than this one (Thor 1/2, Iron Man 1/2, Ant Man, Dr. Strange, Captain America 1), but this one had so much riding on it. Now this goes without saying, going into the exact details of why I disliked some parts of this movie would be heavy spoiler territory. Even though I’m positive almost everyone has seen it, I will remain true to my code and not discuss any spoilers.

Before I discuss why it was so disappointing, I’d like to talk about what I enjoyed from it. There’s obviously a lot to like. Pretty much the entire cast of characters in the franchise is in this film, so it’s great to see everyone meeting each other and fighting alongside each other.  The action is fantastic—even though there is so much going on, you generally have a pretty clear idea of what’s happening. There are also fun character moments between people that have never met, where you can truly see all ten years worth of Marvel movies coming together and becoming reality. Making this film is no easy feat, and I think the Russo brothers have done their best to tackle such a gargantuan task.

There were many reasons that I was disappointed with this movie. For one, there was still too much time spent on building up the incoming threat. Marvel had ten years to make Thanos the clear threat to the Avengers, but most of the team is still unaware of who he is and what he’s capable of prior to this movie. Because there are so many characters, it shuffles between the many plot lines, some being less interesting than others, and there’s a good amount of screen time reserved for building up Thanos the character as well. It takes a bit of time for the movie to pick up, but there are enough fan service distractions to keep you interested for the most part. Like I said before, the Russo brothers had a lot to take on, and you can’t help but feel some of the strains of making a film on such an epic and grand scale.

I found the way the Avengers viewed Thanos’ power and his overall threat to humanity was inconsistent with how they actually interacted with him in the film. There’s a lot of fear and urgency in what they say, but they end up making stupid decisions that seemed antithetical. It’s always hard to reconcile some comic book logic onto the big screen, but it made for some frustrating narrative inconsistencies throughout the film. I also wasn’t sure if some of the scenes of Thanos’ background did a good job humanizing him; I didn’t find it to be particularly believable that he was a sort of deeply conflicted character.

Easily my biggest gripe with the film was the ending. I haven’t read any critics reviews regarding the subject, but there’s a clear “this is part 1” feel to it. There’s also supposed to be a deep emotional impact that I felt was a complete misfire. I figured that because this was the movie that Marvel was building up to, there would be significant changes or higher stakes that really set this movie apart from its predecessors, but it’s so clearly apparent in this film that Marvel is playing the long game, and that they’d prefer to milk the story and their characters as long as possible. A lot of my gripes with the ending are contingent with how Avengers 4 plays out and could possibly retroactively make this film better, but the damage has already been done. I’ve always had problems with a lot of these grand crossover movies to not be able to stand on their own, and maybe that’s just because the whole cinematic universe is a new trend pioneered by Marvel and is something that I’m just not into. I just feel that I should be able to feel satisfied with watching a movie and not have to feel like I need to watch the next one to feel satisfied with this one. When I reflect on other Part 1ers like Fellowship of the Ring, there is enough closure and a clear idea of what’s ahead. With Infinity Wars, I felt that it was Marvel retreading old grounds yet again. There was nothing new under the sun for this film.

I really wanted to like this movie. I really did. I had hopes that it would be a game-changer. Objectively, I think this movie has too many things going for it to warrant a bad grade, but I was so traumatized by the way they handled the last act that it’s really soured my view of Marvel movies moving forward. Perhaps I should thank Infinity Wars, because it’s forced me to have low expectations for all Marvel movies going forward. I’ll be able to enjoy them all because there’s no more reason for me to expect that they’ll do anything that strays from their formula.

Grade: B-/73