Tuesday (2024, dir. Daina O. Pusić)
Certificate: 15
Running Time: 111 mins
UK Distributor: A24
UK Release Date: 9 August 2024
WHO’S IN TUESDAY?
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Lola Petticrew, Leah Harvey, Arinzé Kene, Ellie James, Taru Devani, Jay Simpson, David Sibley, Nathan Amzi, Justin Edwards, Hugh Futcher, Nathan Ives-Moiba, Ewens Abid, Bijal Raj, Florencia Nunez
WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?
Daina O. Pusić (director, writer), Helen Gladders, Ivana MacKinnon and Oliver Roskill (producers), Anna Meredith (composer), Alexis Zabé (cinematographer), Arttu Salmi (editor)
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
A mother (Louis-Dreyfus) and her terminally ill daughter (Petticrew) are visited by an unlikely figure…
WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON TUESDAY?
Movies about death and the grieving process are a dime a dozen. Tuesday, however, is the only one (as far as I know, anyway) that personifies the concept of death as a talking CGI parrot that has size-altering capabilities, a voice that sounds a bit like Dr. Claw from the old Inspector Gadget cartoons, and at one point even the rapping skills of Ice Cube.
At the very least, you’ve got to give first-time feature filmmaker Daina O. Pusić extra points for originality. Hers is a film that, were you to describe it to someone as I just did, would place you in an insane asylum quicker than the Joker in Arkham. In the wrong hands, its execution would almost certainly be no less baffling, kind of like watching a mental patient who’s gone off their medication try to stage their own production of A Monster Calls. But under Pusić’s control, it manages to work surprisingly well as an emotional blend of Studio Ghibli fantasy and raw human drama, one that will no doubt bewilder some viewers but leave others that are willing to go along with it in an unexpected place of comfort.
The aforementioned shape-shifting parrot (whose husky vocals are provided by Arinzé Kene) is first introduced as a mysterious being who is always hearing the voices of those begging for death, which he swiftly provides with the mere wave of his wing. His latest visit is to Tuesday (Lola Petticrew), a terminally ill teenager who is being looked after by her nurse Billie (Leah Harvey) while her mother, Zora (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), frequently goes out in order to avoid her inevitable loss. However, rather than allow the supernatural macaw to do its work, Tuesday manages to disarm it with a light joke, a bath that rinses off all the dirt that it’s accumulated over time, and a request that his business with her be paused until her mother comes home so she can say goodbye.
What ends up happening next is, to put it mildly, not quite what you’d expect. I won’t divulge specific details, because part of my own experience with this film was knowing almost nothing about it (other than the fact that death is a parrot), and you deserve to not have anything beyond the above plot description spoiled for you. This is something that, like I ended up doing, you need to go in blind and allow yourself to be fully taken aback by some of the surprises it has in store.
What can be said, in the most non-spoiler way possible, is that Pusić leans heavily into the fantastical elements of her magical-realist narrative in ways that genuinely catch you off guard. The writer-director takes after the likes of Hayao Miyazaki and Guillermo del Toro by cutting through the whimsy of her premise to showcase a much darker side to her imaginative world, one where the implications and hidden meanings are far more terrifying than how they seem on the surface. Her grasp on the grounded fantasy is strong, and it is impressive how she is able to recraft what is a classic concept into something fresh and interesting.
All the while, her script straddles between being a supernatural horror, a quirky comedy, and even an apocalyptic thriller at one point, yet the filmmaker miraculously avoids a sense of complete tonal whiplash, maintaining its raw emotional centre that doesn’t let the guaranteed tragedy of the titular Tuesday go unnoticed. Even amongst everything that it throws at you, from a scene where the parrot of death raps along to Ice Cube’s “It Was a Good Day” (which, incidentally, is worth the price of admission alone) to somehow being the second A24 film this year to have abnormally giant people in it, Tuesday never loses sight that it is dealing with universal themes like death and grief. Again, it isn’t like there haven’t been plenty of films made about these things, even within the fantasy genre, but the film takes an approach towards these familiar topics that is not only unique but also legitimately heartbreaking, with some scenes that cut right to my own core that’s still raw after certain tragedies in my recent history.
The performances are solid, with Julia Louis-Dreyfus doing very well in a rare non-comedic role (though there are still a good few moments that bring out her classic screen persona), while Lola Petticrew makes the most of her somewhat limited but no less affectionate presence. However, there are times when you feel that the characters they’re portraying are written to be a bit too ignorant towards the impending tragedy, particular Louis-Dreyfus’s Zora who, even when facing down an actual supernatural being that’s been established to not just be the figment of someone’s imagination, is so in denial that she ends up saying and doing things that do no make it easy to be fully on board with their arc. You definitely sympathise with the character’s conflicting emotions, but there is such a thing as being too sceptical about something that it completely blinds one’s better judgement.
That aside, I did find Tuesday to be quite a challenging movie to absorb, and I mean that as a compliment. Not only does it tackle these emotionally taxing themes with vibrant and unpredictable originality, but it also has plenty of poignant wisdom to offer anyone who may be going through the grimmer processes of life, which left me in a vulnerable but certifiably peaceful place.
Never thought I’d feel so much in a film with a parrot of death rapping to Ice Cube.
SO, TO SUM UP…
Tuesday is a vibrantly original fantasy-drama about death that tackles its heavy themes with poignant wisdom and a firm focus on its emotional core, with its more out-there qualities working better than they have any right to.
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