“Tuesday” Review
Julia Louis-Dreyfus confronts Death, in the form of a talking parrot, in “Tuesday”, an A24 film that handles the difficult nature of accepting death and dealing with the imbalances of life.
We don’t like to think about death too much yet it’s always around us, especially in our stories. When the producers want to shake things up on a television series, they kill off a fan-favorite character. When a hero dies, we cry. When a villain dies, we cheer. In Joseph Campbell’s take on the hero’s journey, there’s often a mentor character and that character often dies to advance the plot and to pass the torch onto the protagonist, especially if the character is an old man. Just ask Obi-Wan Kenobi, Gandalf or Uncle Ben. However, there’s a difference between death as a plot device and death as the underlying current that marks a whole film. In the case of “Tuesday”, one of the worst kinds of death is explored, when a parent loses a child, and it is done quite well. It might not be the most pleasant film to sit with but the engaging story, performances and themes all come together to form a very meditative experience.
Terminally ill, a teenage girl named Tuesday (Lola Petticrew) is visited by the angel of Death (Arinzé Kene), who takes the form of a parrot and has revealed to Tuesday that her time has come. Wanting to say goodbye to her mother Zora (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), Tuesday and Death get to know each other and try to understand one another. When Zora does arrive, the three characters find themselves at a standstill between life and death, between denying and accepting the reality of what’s to come.
Of course, Julia Louis-Dreyfus is always going to be known as a comic actress thanks to iconic performances and a record-breaking amount of awards but, like her performance in “You Hurt My Feelings”, Louis-Dreyfuss really takes chances with this character. You obviously feel so much for Zora as she’s faced with the death of her daughter but she’s also written in a way that feels compelling and natural. Zora isn’t always this person to feel bad for/ She can have her faults and it’s so important to see Zora address them while also mustering the courage to say goodbye. It’s another example of why Louis-Dreyfus is the powerhouse she is.
Also delivering an outstanding performance is Lola Petticrew who delivers a profound mix of emotions with this character. While Tuesday is afraid of dying, she also is in so much pain. This internal conflict is on display the entire time and Petticrew really does sell this persona as someone who has had to grow up in a multitude of ways regarding her disease but is still very much a relatable child. The conversations that Tuesday has with Death also feel somehow natural given the extraordinary nature of the film’s story.
With this conflict between life and death, writer/director Daina O. Pusić (who makes her directorial debut with “Tuesday”) takes some big risks and showcases great ambition. Like most A24 productions, boundaries will be pushed with the subject matter and this won’t be a generic drama film. In the case of some of the more “out-there” ideas, especially in regards to Zora, I feel that it all worked to “Tuesday’s” advantage and made for a film that felt like a slow burn towards something meaningful.
In particular, I was impressed with the strength of what Pusić was saying with “Tuesday” and how the film treats Death as both an idea and a character. It’s not something to always be feared or to always embrace. How you perceive it depends greatly on the circumstances and, due to its final nature, Death is always going to simultaneously heal and hurt. It’s a complicated idea that has been handled quite well in this story that feels both small and universal. While I can imagine the film’s audience is going to be limited because of the harsh nature of its story, I do think it’s worth seeing as an interesting study about how we want to fight what is inevitable.
