If you don’t watch R-rated movies you may not have given the movie Tully a second look but you should. It’s not that it isn’t R-rated content but it’s more don’t-watch-this-with-children R-rated than damage-your-soul R-rated. Tully is a movie that takes an unflinching look at one of the more intense periods of motherhood (immediately pre- and postpartum) and anybody who has had a baby can tell you that that has a lot of bits that aren’t suitable for viewing by children.
I read the spoiler of a review in the New York Times (Diablo Cody, Responding to Criticism, Says ‘Tully’ Is Meant to Be ‘Uncomfortable’) so I had a little bit of an idea of what I what I was going to see when I walked into the movie theater but it was still a pretty wild ride (and not quite what you might expect based on the movie’s trailer). There were exactly two of us in the theater when I watched it one Wednesday morning and about 3/4 of the way through my fellow movie go-er got up and walked out. Even though she was a stranger to me I wanted to run after her and tell her to come back. I didn’t, because I’m not creepy and I didn’t want to miss movie minutes harassing a stranger. So let me harass you instead.
There is a moment or two in the movie where everyone who has ever attended Sunday School will wonder what in the heck they got themselves into. You may want to walk out. If you can’t bring yourself to trust the filmmakers then trust me. It’s all going to be ok. It’s all necessary to get to the point of this incredible journey. Some of it could probably have gotten the point across in a less, ahem, explicit manner but some of it absolutely could not and even the former would have lost something valuable if it had been sanitized. We hear a lot about the pretty parts of motherhood and the acceptable chaos. But there are stories that are not heard because they make us uncomfortable. There are realities that are not part of the public discourse. There are women who are as unseen as the end of this movie because as a society we walk out. We don’t want to know. Best not to think about how sausages and humans are made.
A large part of this movie examines perceptions–from small things like both brothers-in-law thinking the other hates him to big things like The Big Reveal That Shall Not Be Named. The oldest child in the family is a special needs kid and spends much of the movie being seen as the Problem to be Addressed (not even as a problem to be solved, just as a problem). When we encounter someone who doesn’t see him that way we (and the mom) almost don’t know how to proceed. Part of what makes that scene so poignant is that for a large chunk of this movie no one challenged the school administrator’s perception of the child. No one looked beyond her basic assumptions about this kid, what his behavior meant, and what responsibility the adults in the room had towards him. The mom (Marlo) is overwhelmed by it, but she doesn’t challenge it.
It’s the same with the dad’s perception of Marlo–both how she is doing and what her responsibilities are. He lives very much in a world where dads “babysit” instead of parent and the two instances where that is challenged stand out in high relief because everyone seems to have his same perception. He is not painted as a bad person (though he is certainly called out on his perceptions twice more than he would be in real life), but the movie clearly shows the problems such perceptions cause. He may not be bad but he is most assuredly wrong and how his perceptions play out make the ending worth sticking around for. I described it to a friend as “the dad gets some redemption at the end” but, really, the whole family does. The black place you want to walk out of 3/4 of the way through the movie is the dark place they must crawl out of. It’s what needs to be truly seen.
I once heard someone argue that breastfeeding is preferable to bottle feeding because you don’t have to wake up the dad for help, which is good because men need so much more sleep than women do. My head nearly exploded at that one. Just because you get up out of bed and do what has to be done does not mean that you need less sleep. It just means that you are as tough as nails! The mom in this movie is all kinds of tough but what we see at the end of the movie is that not only is that unsustainable, it’s not the best way to live.
That is the take-away from this movie and I wanted to shout it from the rooftops. I wanted to round up every man I know and make him watch this movie. I wanted to tell them not to flinch, not to look away, not to walk out of the theater because they had a long day and their wife totally has this under control. Your wife is as tough as nails She is very capable. That is not in dispute. But making and raising humans is not a one person job. She needs just as much sleep as you do, no matter what society might expect of her and of you. And movie watching is more nuanced than just checking the rating. Challenge your perceptions.
Marianne Hales 