Tallulah Movie Review

Tallulah (2016)

Watch Tallulah on Netflix
Written by: Sian Heder
Directed by: Sian Heder
Starring: Zachary Quinto, Uzo Aduba, Ellen Page, Allison Janney
Rated: PG-13

 Plot:
In this Netflix original, a woman desperate for a break from her child hires a stranger to babysit. 

Verdict:
It sounds like a comedy, but it isn't. I wanted more from this. It takes a while to distance itself from the initial tropes it sets up, before exploring motherhood from three radically different viewpoints. Unfortunately nothing manifests, and the ending is not just underwhelming but almost intentionally bad.
Skip it.

Review:
From the start this taps in to the free spirit drifter trope. Lu (Ellen Page) likes eating from dumpsters and living in a van, but her boyfriend doesn't.

She's mistaken as an employee while stealing food at a hotel and asked to watch a toddler by Carolyn. Carolyn is crazy, high, or both. She's not right and I wasn't sure if Carolyn just wanted to ditch her child or wanted a break. No one in their right mind would mistake Lu for an employee of the hotel. Carolyn is obviously unequipped to handle a kid. Is it even hers?

Lu decides to steal the kid. This feels like a dramatic remake of a comedy as Lu has no idea how to raise a kid. It's easy to tell where this is going, and the few attempts at surprise never materialize. Lu is more of a sociopath than free spirit. She cons her former boyfriend's mother, Margo (Allison Janney), into helping her.Carolyn is a more interesting story, but that part isn't explored despite the fact that social services is called in. Uzo Adoba does a great job in a role completely different from Orange is the New Black. The problem is that she doesn't have near enough screen time in this.

Tallulah - Uneven at best,

Carolyn is the mother than doesn't want to be a mother. Margo is the mother that lost her son when he grew up, and Lu never wanted to be a mother until she felt the urge to protect this baby she stole.
Margo and Lu's relationship becomes less cliche in the last third, but I wanted an investigation into Carolyn. She's unfit to be a parent, and her tears over losing her child seem slightly disingenuous. Maybe this has caused her to realize the lover for her child, but nothing ever comes of her obvious deficiencies.

The last third isn't bad. Each of the three females interact. Lu is responsible for both of these women losing their kids. She stole both of them, but with her boyfriend, he had a choice. Margo never wanted to lose her son, but Carolyn actively wished for it. Margo is too quick to believe Lu, but she wanted something to believe in and this was it.

I was surprised at how bad of an ending this had. I was hoping for a solid ending that would retroactively improve the whole movie, but what we got was silly and ridiculous. I don't even like this ending. It's like an intern lost the last few pages of a script, plagiarized a children's book, and no one realized.