[yasr_overall_rating]
The film is about Marlo, a mother of three including a newborn, who is gifted a night nanny by her brother. Hesitant to the extravagance at first, Marlo comes to form a unique bond with the thoughtful, surprising, and sometimes challenging young nanny named Tully.
Marlo (Charlize Theron) is waddling around in her third trimester while she cares for two other children and her childlike husband, Drew (Ron Livingston). Her son has “quirky” needs that look a lot like autism, but the movie appears to be set in the ’90s when perhaps autism was still a fairly misunderstood diagnosis. Marlo and Drew seem to be barely getting by financially and with a third baby on the way, they have to face her wealthy brother’s helpful suggestions of how to get back on their feet with a job, with kids, and with money. Honestly, the brother, though a little of an asshole, sounds like he is just genuinely interested in his sister’s wellbeing and wants to help.
The brother tells Marlo that he has paid for a night nanny who will help during the first few weeks after the baby is born. Marlo is offended at the idea of not taking care of her own baby, afraid that the baby will bond with this night nanny. So she rejects the gift. At first.
The baby is born and of course, Marlo’s nights become her days and her days are still days. Nursing, diapers, baby monitor squawking, then kids off to school, husband drying up from lack of sex… Meanwhile, the school that her son attends tells her that they can no longer provide adequate care for his needs. She’s tired. She’s angry. She’s alone and rejected. And the baby won’t take the pacifier. That’s when she remembers the night nanny. Young, perky Tully (Mackenzie Davis) shows up a few nights later and radically changes everything. But she’s a little weird too. She watches the breastfeeding. She pries a little too closely into the private details of Marlo’s life. There is even a really shocking sex scene. But Marlo accepts Tully, even accepts her 20-something nosiness and invalidated La-Leche-League-advice-giving. But there is an odd tension building. Is Marlo falling for Tully? Is Tully going to be some sort of surrogate sex wife? Is she real?? Is anything about this triangular relationship real at all?
And then the twist.
I don’t want to give it away, but there’s an accident and Marlo almost dies. Then everything comes to light in some sort of weird crumbling psychosis. The story itself has some weak points and transitions, but I think it nudges viewers into seeing the valor of everyday women, especially mothers, in a way that is often overlooked and disregarded.
Also, Charlize Theron is simply amazing in her ability to strip herself down to the barest, most raw expression of her character until you are mesmerized by both her own human beauty that she uses to bring to life the beautiful humanity of her story acting. How one woman can so eloquently portray a serial killer, an MI-6 spy, and now even a mother trapped in a post-partum body while longing for her 20-year-old self…is truly notable. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that this film is even that much more effective because of Theron’s abilities to carry this character to every depth imaginable.
Every mother will relate to the agony of caring for her children to the loss of caring for herself. This is a story truly worth telling not only because there are so many rich moments of humanity hidden in our everyday lives, but also because we are better for remembering their importance.
In theaters Friday, May 4th
