Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea. —Henry Fielding

10 February 2019

Tully (2018)


Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman's Tully is funny and poignant, and I was having a good time for two acts of the film.

Charlize Theron is just great. She's the kind of actress who is excellent in a comedy film, an action film, a serious drama film, and she often be the single most compellingly watchable thing in a fantasy film.

But then in act three the movie does this dumb thing that I won't explain other than to say it's the kind of thing a first-time screenwriter would tell you about over drinks while saying something like Isn't that clever?? Well, no. It actually isn't. It's unnecessary and gets in the way of all of the smart, funny, intriguing themes you were exploring.

Diablo Cody's screenplay takes this dumb turn at the film's end that just spoils the movie so much that it almost invalidates all of the interesting things that Tully had to say. It settles for easy solutions, and it makes the film about the writer instead of about the characters. It's too bad, too, because Tully was really good before the last 15 minutes or so.

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