Tuesday (15) |Close-Up Film Review
Cast: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Lola Petticrew, Arinzé Kene
Review by Carol Allen
Tuesday is dying and her mother can’t accept this. They have a strangely enclosed relationship, almost unhealthily so, in that there is no sign of a father or any other family or friends, apart from Tuesday’s carer.
The other main character is Death itself, who takes the form of a man sized macaw bird – a sort of parrot without the colourful plumage – who is voiced by Arinzé Kene, sounding rather like Darth Varda. An interesting and unusual concept for the Grim Reaper. Tuesday appears to be quite calm about her impending demise but she realises her mother isn’t, so she befriends Death to help Zora accept the reality of the situation. Which is quite a task.
It’s a strong human story told in a very unusual way. Death can change size at will – at one point he becomes a normal sized bird so Tuesday can help him wash his feathers in the bathroom sink. He can also become the size of a teardrop. So too can Zora in her battle with Death. Like Alice in Wonderland she can become giant or she can become minisucule. At one point she even devours Death, at another she packs a miniaturised Tuesday into a back pack and takes her to a wild and deserted sea shore.
It is a very odd film. The two actresses, interacting much of the time with a giant bird who probably wasn’t there when filming, are very convincing. Petticrew in their calm and almost cheerful acceptance of the character’s fate and strange new ally and Louis-Dreyfus powerful in her refusal to accept the situation and her battle with the inevitable.
Magic realism is a difficult trick to pull off. One of the most successful creators of this particular form of storytelling is Guillermo del Toro with films such as Pan’s Labryrinth and The Shape of Water. Writer/director Daina Oniunas-Pusic, making her debut feature film, has a good crack at it but the surreal nature of her story is sometimes difficult to accept, and a bit bewildering. It’s a valiant enterprise however and technically very impressive. Not recommended though for anyone who has been recently bereaved.
