Tully

Marlo's (Charlize Theron) life looks very different from the perfectly styled momfluencer profiles on Instagram. Here, in a peaceful suburb of New York, it's not about parenting or interior design tips for the nursery. Here, it's all about survival – all the milk stains and emotional scars that an extremely disruptive schoolchild, a neglected “middle child” and, most recently, a screaming infant can inflict on a mother. Especially when her loving but equally overwhelmed husband (Ron Livingston) prefers to escape to his PlayStation instead of getting their married life back on track amid all the chaos of raising children. In short, Marlo is at the end of her rope when her wealthy brother shows up with an extravagant gift: a “night nanny” to take care of the children at night so that the mother can get some rest, in the form of the pretty, free-spirited college student Tully (Mackenzie Davis). Tully turns Marlo's life upside down and gives her islands of peace that finally allow her to sleep again... and find herself. "Even the stage name [of screenwriter Diablo Cody] testifies to the pleasure of breaking with convention; one could call it diabolical. It all began when she blogged about her life as a feminist stripper in the sex world and wrote a book about it. With 'Juno', an unusually clear-eyed look at teenage pregnancy, she found her voice in Hollywood, her co-conspirator Jason Reitman — and won an Oscar. In 'Young Adult', Charlize Theron joined the two, exploring the lostness of thirty-something women caught between career and family desires. In 2015, Cody had just become a mother for the third time, the newborn was crying next door, and she owed the studio the next script. That's how 'Tully' came about. [...] It seems about as fabulous as the old story of the brownies. You wait for the revelation of what might be wrong with Tully. Is she the clichéd nanny from misogynistic horror films who sweetly insinuates herself into intact families, only to wreak havoc? No, she is not. Instead, the two women become increasingly relaxed, sharing sexual secrets and intimate details, and Marlo thinks more and more about her own youth, awakening a long-buried spirit of adventure within her. And yet—of course Tully has an astonishing secret. To even hint at this secret would be high treason, not only against the principle of female solidarity. Suffice it to say that it is brilliantly conceived, Diablo Cody's most ingenious prank yet: surprising and compelling at the same time, and true to boot." (Tobias Kniebe, on: sueddeutsche.de)