Film Review: Charlize Theron in ‘Tully’ Turns Mom Into Martyr

Printer-friendly versionE-mail page to friendPDF version

CHICAGO – “Tully” is a deeply weird motherhood fantasy snuck inside the friendly-but-distancing screenwriting constructs of another pseudo ironic story by Diablo Cody. Charlize Theron plays Margo, a mother of two kids with a third due any day, struggling with the sacrifices she’s made for motherhood.

Rating: 2.0/5.0

When the third child finally arrives, her rich douche of a brother (Mark Duplass) gifts her a night nanny to care for the baby in the evenings so she and her husband (Ron Livingston) can get some rest. While admittedly apprehensive at first, Theron reaches her breaking point and eventually calls her up, because she also has an 8 year old daughter, and a kindergartener with behavior issues who is having trouble at school. Her husband is a hard worker and helps with homework, but is otherwise out of commission once bedtime rolls around.

This is not a film that glamorizes the bonds between mother and child. This is a film featuring a montage of breast pumping, baby monitoring, and diaper genies to illustrate the drudgery of child rearing. Charlize Theron is a beautiful woman, and she has never been afraid to make herself look unattractive on screen, this time covering her body in 40 pounds of pure flab. Her face wears a continuous expression of suffering which may reflect how some mothers feel about their lot in life, but also is an expression of her own narcissism. She turns the baby weight into a cross she continues to bear long after the children are out of her womb, as she begins to think back about what her life could have been.

Continue reading for Spike Walter’s full review of “Tully”

Charlize Theron is a Tired Mom in ‘Tully’
Photo credit: Focus Features

Continue reading for Spike Walter’s full review of “Tully”