It’s life, Jim, just as we know it.

Several years and several thousand pounds studying English literature only to end up in HR working for a company which makes protein bars.

A carousel of lovers of both genders only to end up with a man who is described not as one of the colourful runners and riders but “the bench” and whose idea of action in bed is shooting zombies on the Xbox.

A carefree attitude and a stunning figure only to end up with stress, exhaustion, insomnia, depression and a body which resembles “a relief map of a war-torn country” and “an abandoned trash barge”.

A nuclear family of 2.4 children, one girl, one boy, only to end up with a nuclear bomb of a family in which the girl spends more time on FaceTime than actual face time, the 1.4 boy is so “quirky” that his mother is forced into “paying for aids” (a teaching assistant, not the “Don’t Die of Ignorance” virus) and an unplanned pregnancy hits you in the face “like a garbage truck”.

Like I said: It’s life, Jim, just as we know it. Or as John Lennon more poetically put it in Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy) in his final studio album: “Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans.”

All that changes, however, when Marlo (Charlize Theron) and her husband Craig (Mark Duplass) are offered financial assistance from her wealthy brother Drew (Ron Livingston), described as having a default setting of “asshole”, to pay for a night nanny who arrives in the shape of the titular Tully (Mackenzie Davis). An attractive, intelligent, wise, funny, caring dreamer who is everything that Marlo is not ‒ but once was.

Instantly, the bags under her eyes loosen their load, the wrinkles on her forehead level into a sandy beach of sunshine and sangria, her shoulders unhunch, her gurn flips into a grin and, as Judy Garland once sung, “Life is just a bowl of cherries”.

Until fate intervenes in the shape of a plot twist which turns everything on its head in a moving and life-affirming finale.

Penned by Diablo Cody and directed by her frequent collaborator Jason Reitman, both of whom worked together on the Oscar-winning Juno, Tully is quietly brilliant and equally beautiful. As are the performances by Charlize Theron and Mackenzie Davis whose yin and yang relationship is forged on a friendship which is both platonic and sexually charged.

How do you juggle the demands of parenthood with the necessity of work and the luxury of a social life? How do you keep the plates spinning without your hopes and dreams and sex life crashing to the floor? How do you make space for me time when everyone wants your time? And when the sand starts shifting beneath your feet, who and what do you cling to to make the descent bearable?

Cody and Reitman provide no answers, but in their refreshingly honest and subtle manner point us in the direction of what’s important. And that’s what makes Tully so five-star special.

Director: Jason Reitman
Writer: Diablo Cody
Stars: Charlize Theron, Mackenzie Davis, Ron Livingston
Peter Callaghan
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