Tully (2018): Five years ago I was working as a Day
Habilitation Specialist, which is ACHIEVE’s way of labeling me the person in
charge of a “core room” of upwards of ten adult individuals with developmental
disabilities. I had one staff to help me out (spent most of the day on social
media) sometimes two (also addicted to the phone) when the agency could spare
someone. I was aware of my son’s encroaching birth, which of course left me
with a lot of looming questions that made me even more nervous to tackle parenthood.
My coworkers sure as shit didn’t help matters, telling me nightmare stories
about their experiences with newborns where they essentially gave up on sleep,
sanity, and a social life. One of my friends/coworkers told me that my life was
“officially over,” reminding me that my time playing music was about to end and
chased this hammy avowal with an elated cackle. I’m happy to report that these
cookie-cutter pussies were wrong. I think it’s common to overwhelm the tenderfoot
parent with portentous dread; perhaps to prepare them for the worst of the
worst, or to fish for compliments about his or her resilience, or maybe both.
Either way, their warnings helped give me a literal panic attack on the floor
of Wilson Hospital the second night of Dean’s life outside the womb. Parenting
is often viewed in popular culture as a seventeen-year setback with the
requisite “but it’s worth every minute” soppiness tacked on for bolstering décor.
Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman are tackling this struggle again, this time with
middle class adults as opposed to Cody’s teenage jerk avatar. Charlize Theron
and Ron Livingston play Marlo and Drew married and miserable with two kids and
one on the way. Early on we see Marlo brushing her “quirky” son’s arms, legs,
and back. This is called the Wilbarger Protocol, a sensory therapy for kids and
adults with tactile defensiveness, which is mostly linked with individuals on
the spectrum. It’s a lovely scene that stuck out like a sore thumb, to me, in
contrast to Cody and Reitman’s drab view of Marlo’s despondent daily routine
and all of the assholes who pop in and out of it. It should be noted that, to
my already fading recollection, the film chooses to end with a very similar moment.
Sandwiched in between we get scene after scene of Marlo slowly losing it a la
Mabel Longhetti, but with nicer music to lighten the blow. She’s being
swallowed up by hypercritical adults (brother, sister-in-law, principal,
stranger at café, etc.), unruly kids, and a husband who quite frankly doesn’t
do enough, if anything, to lighten the load. With the arrival of a newborn girl,
her third child, it only gets worse. A montage helps illuminate the struggle,
which is especially real for those unlucky enough to be married to a Drew. At
her wits end, she SPOILER! conjures up the titular night-nanny and becomes the
best mom in the world until nearly killing herself after a drunken night
hopping around gentrified Brooklyn neighborhoods inhabited by her younger self.
That same boundless/happier woman would seemingly be Tully, at least in Marlo’s
fragmented and idealized fantasy concoction of years that can’t be replicated
and are thus gone except in memory alone. I would imagine that anyone could get
bummed thinking about the sadness of passing time and the vanishing glory days
that none of us will shut up about. Plot twists in and of themselves are only
successful if they enrich and inform what came before and I’m convinced that
this one is cheap and pointless, leaving what came before emptier. Maybe the
collapse with nothing in it was the point, I don’t know. Parenthood is often
comedically rough as is life itself, and thus I’ll take a hundred Blockers to
one Tully.
The Rider (2018): Similar to Tully, Chloe Zhao’s glimpse
into modern day Teton Sioux rodeo culture (I’m not sure which of the seven
sub-tribes our rider belongs to) features a “quirky” individual but treats her
with far more dignity and respect. Her name is Lilly and she is developmentally
disabled. She is loved by her brother and father, both saddled with their own glut
of emotional/existential/psychological hurdles. At times Lilly emerges as the
sole voice of reason amidst mulish masculine recklessness and monotonous
destitution. Tully’s version of everything and everyone lacks dimension and
complexity, which I’m guessing is by design. Zhao’s film is deeper by
construct; using real events from Brady Jandreau’s actual life to form a loose
narrative about whether life beyond vocation is worth living. She finds a
poignant parallel in the human sanctioned death of an injured horse. If we find
it just and humane to kill an animal that loses its ability to walk and roam
free out of mercy, why not let Brady kill himself doing the one thing that
gives his life meaning? Combine this with the Jandreau/Blackburn’s struggle to
keep a roof over their head and you can see why this young kid might take his
friends’ chest-puffing bait to toughen up and die preserving his legacy. The
fact that he finds his will to live in not one, but two disabled individuals
--- the other is Lane Scott ------ is nothing short of beautiful.
