Just some notes on themes in Tully:
Sympathetic heroes and privilege of having a “night nanny”: The movie apologizes for its privilege early on with a conversation between Mark Duplass’s character and his sister Marlowe (“I know you think I’m just a bourgeois douche-bag,” but don’t knock it til’ you try it). Marlowe’s husband is a hard worker, mentions his promotion only in passing and spending much of the action out of the picture at work and weekend trips away. Clearly has a good report with his two older kids, communicates with Marlowe about the goings-on, the school’s desire for them to pay for a 1-on-1 aide, her reservations about their weird nanny. At the same time, there’s only a passing suggestion at infidelity, and only long enough to dismiss it. His sex drive is not misplaced, it’s depleted, waiting for (as Tully puts it) the batteries to be “recharged”. He shows little to no interest in Tully as a sexual creature despite Marlowe’s own anxieties, her wide eyed stares early on at the belly-shirts and tight-fit jeans.
In many ways, the undertone of erotics is much more between Marlowe and Tully rather than what one might expect after one of the First Big Events. Their relationship, Marlowe’s infatuation with Tully’s body, manifests itself in passing remarks (“How old are you?”) and intimate make-up application sessions, Tully holding the lipstick for her, putting it on her lips, unstrapping Marlowe’s bra so that she can breastfeed, Tully staring at Marlowe as she feeds, M’s daughter recognizes the change (“Mom, why do you wear make up now?). The erotic tension works on another level after the Big Reveal. Aristophanes’s children of the moon: one woman split into two instead of the other way around. In the First Big Event, Marlowe’s delight in the surprise for her husband, her initial disbelief melts away as she’s caught up in Tully’s enthusiasm, her attraction to Tully’s filling out of the costume (“You really have never had kids,” she remarks admiringly.)
The miraculous transformation in retrospect looks like mania and performance, self-reliance twisted in on itself into something uglier and lonely. Dialogue in the first act is Charlize Theron at her best, acerbic, quick, dripping with irony, and the third act peels away the venom for more earnest conversations (Tully is obsessed with learning languages: she quotes an English writer the first time they meet [“Off to bed”], mentions she’s just started learning Italian, knows enough to make a Japanese joke, and quips, “All we do is converse. We live like we’re in a Spanish textbook”). The Big Reveal isn’t cheap. It helps sharpen the narrative and reveals how flexible the metaphor of Tully is. Provides structure and symmetry to the third act.
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