10 May 2018

Bouts of Depression


TULLY (C+) - Too much of a cheat and a conceit -- and dare I say, even too much of Charlize Theron? -- this harrowing mix of post-partum depression and some old-fashioned delusion sounds promising on paper, coming from writer Diablo Cody ("Juno") and Jason Reitman ("Up in the Air"), who last teamed up on the underwhelming "Young Adult." Theron is a miserable pregnant woman and then disaffected mother of a third child. She already has her hands full with two other kids (the boy seems to fall on the autism scale) and a tuned-out husband (a fine Ron Livingston). When 26-year-old Tully (Mackenzie Davis) shows up as a "night nanny" she seems quirky but a god-send who not only allows for Theron's Marlo to get a decent night's sleep but also cleans the house during the night and bakes cupcakes for junior's class.

The first 10 minutes might drive you mad, and props to Theron for looking less than svelte and stunning, but a significant plot twist turns the viewer's presumptions asunder; it would have been clever but for the requirement of major idiot-plot devices that make you realize, in retrospect, that this just doesn't make sense. I sat through annoying kids and multiple breast-pumping scenes for ... that? Cody can toss out one-liners as if she's writing for a super-smart TV series, but the zingers merely fizzle and pop without leaving much of an aftertaste. This one verges on pointless.

FILM STARS DON'T DIE IN LIVERPOOL (B-minus) - Annette Bening and Jamie Bell are a charming due but director Paul McGuigan and writer Matt Greenhalgh create a disorienting, low-energy narrative about the final years of noir siren Gloria Grahame and her May-December romance with a Liverpudlian half her age. No one here tries for an epic biopic, which is refreshing; but the lack of ambition can make this seem insignificant at times.

Bening is an engaging cougar and she captures the arrogance and insecurity of a washed-up Old Hollywood beauty, living out her final days in denial. (Grahame infamously bedded her teenage stepson and later married him, back in the '50s.) Bell knits his eyebrows a lot, whether the couple is bickering in 1979 or, upon their reunion in 1981, he is tending to a dying former lover. This should jerk a tear or two by the end, and some of the scenes really sizzle. But it too often feels that the extraordinary Bening is working without a net here.

BONUS TRACK
From the "Liverpool" soundtrack, a little Southern soul, "I Haven't Got Time to Cry" by Irma Thomas:


 

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