Philadelphia Film Society's SpringFest presents Jason Reitman's 'Tully'

Reitman debuted 12 years ago, at age 28, with Thank You for Smoking, followed the next year by Juno and in 2009 by Up in the Air. All were fantastic in very different ways, with the latter two nominated for Best Picture Oscars. Reitman’s next few films, Young Adult, Labor Day, and Men, Women and Children, were all disappointing; that last title was one of the decade’s worst movies. He followed it with a five-year hiatus.

Tully is many things at once: an understanding, realistic look at troubled motherhood; a sharp satire of a certain kind of hipster parenting; and something that’s twisty in a way I won’t reveal. It’s also often screamingly funny and driven by Charlize Theron’s superlative leading performance.

The film stars Theron as Marlo, a struggling middle-class woman about to give birth to her third child. Her 6-year-old is possibly autistic, while her husband (Ron Livingston) provides less help than she’d like. Once the baby is born, Marlo’s wealthy, smug brother (Mark Duplass at his absolute Mark Duplass-iest) offers to provide them with a night nanny.

Once the nanny arrives, in the person of Mackenzie Davis, events take a surprising turn, then another. Things end up far from where I expected.

Shape-shifting

Theron, on a roll lately in a series of very different roles (Mad Max: Fury Road; Atomic Blonde), gives one of her most powerful turns here. She gained 40 pounds for the part; this is but the latest in a career marked by dramatic character-assisting changes in appearance.

Livingston nails a tricky role as the husband, one much truer to a typical dad than is normally depicted onscreen. He’s a decent guy, not a jerk and not a bad father, but somewhat clueless about what’s happening in his home and not nearly as helpful as he should be.

As for Davis, so affecting in both the TV series Halt and Catch Fire and the “San Junipero” episode of Black Mirror, she’s pretty much the only actor I can imagine in the role.

The film’s music, as is often the case with this director, is uniformly perfect. At one point, we hear a snippet of Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” in what feels like a hacky musical queue, but it’s actually part of a longer motif involving an entire Lauper album. There’s also repeated, expert use of the song “Blue” by the Jayhawks.

Tully represents the return to form of one of our best feature filmmakers. But if you’re going to see it — and I recommend it — be sure to avoid all spoilers.