Life, love, sadness, grief, and acceptance are at the core of A24’s Tuesday starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Veep). Dreyfus plays Zora, a middle-aged mom who’s doing her best to avoid facing her daughter Tuesday’s illness. She acts like she’s going to work, but instead she goes to museums, the park, and pawn shops to help pay for her daughter’s treatment.
Zora’s not home when Tuesday (Lola Petticrew, Bloodlands) experiences a particularly difficult time breathing, even with her oxygen machine. She’s visited by Death, who takes an incredibly unusual form. Death has been played by many different actors in films, including Bengt Ekerot in The Seventh Seal, John Cleese in The Meaning of Life, and Brad Pitt in Meet Joe Black. But in this case, Death takes the form of a giant bird. A macaw, to be exact.
The macaw can alter its appearance, changing its size from as big as a house to as tiny as an ant. Its gravelly voice (provided by actor Arinzé Kene, Flack) sounds ancient, and the bird has a commanding presence.
Tuesday, sensing what the large bird really is, asks that it not kill her. “I must,” it replies. However, before he can end her life, she tells a joke which causes Death to burst out laughing. The unlikely pair then engage in a conversation about music, and Death even recalls some prominent historical figures he’s known and dispatched.
Tuesday asks the macaw to allow her to say goodbye to her mom and Death agrees. This, though, becomes incredibly difficult because Zora continues to ignore the subject of her daughter’s death. The circumstances are so unusual that Death takes the extraordinary step of revealing itself to Zora to help prepare her for her daughter’s unavoidable passing.
Sad and bizarre, Tuesday is a fantasy drama that tackles the difficult subject of dealing with an impending death and the grief that follows. It’s an awkward adult fantasy with impressive special effects and a wonderful performance by Lola Petticrew.
Petticrew delivers a memorable, moving performance as Tuesday, a good-natured and kind teenager doing everything in her power to hold on to life until she can make sure her mother will be all right after she’s gone. Her scenes with the macaw are the best in the film as she actually becomes Death’s friend and wins him over to buy herself a little more time.
Arinzé Kene does a great job as the voice of the macaw. His rough delivery makes the bird that much more an enigma but also gives Death a little lighter side as he interacts with Tuesday.
Unfortunately, the film’s constantly shifting tone turns out to be its biggest problem. The tone swings from deadly serious to offbeat to strange, even occasionally embracing dark comedy vibes. The film never finds the right rhythm or mood.
Another issue is Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ uneven performance as Zora. In the second half of the film when Zora is dealing with the macaw and still denying Tuesday’s situation, she plays it as a screwball comedy which feels out of place and does not work at all. Louis-Dreyfus does, however, have some truly touching scenes with Petticrew in the last half of the film.
Original, weird, and depressing, writer/director Daina Oniunas-Pusic’s Tuesday is a film about facing death and loss. Unfortunately, it falls short of eliciting any genuine emotional response.
GRADE: C
MPAA Rating: R for language
Running Time: 1 hour 51 minutes
Release Date: June 14, 2024
Studio: A24
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