This dramatic fantasy tackles what happens when a mother, Zora, (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and her terminally ill daughter, Tuesday, (Lola Petticrew) encounter Death in the form of a shape shifting macaw. This was quite an undertaking for the directorial debut of Daina Oniunas-Pusić who also wrote the imaginative script about an American woman living in England with her daughter. There isn’t much backstory about how they got there, where Dad is, or what the girl’s malady is. It all takes place in the present about the mother/daughter relationship and their interaction with the bird.
This is the third dramatic role for known comedian Louis-Dreyfus (Enough Said, You Hurt My Feelings) and it’s the most serious. She plays a woman who is in complete denial about her daughter, Tuesday’s, impending fate. Most days Tuesday is cared for by hospice nurse Billie (Leah Harvey) who hoists her out of bed and into a wheelchair and provides companionship.
Zora, meanwhile, can’t wait for Billie’s arrival so she can flee the house, so she can sell off her weird knick-knacks and sleep on park benches. Billie implores Tuesday and Zora to spend more time with each other, while they still can.
Oniunas-Punić introduces us to the bird, with it’s low, eerie, cackling voice is played by Nigerian actor Arinzé Kene as he goes about his task of dispatching other death-bound voyagers, many of whom go down fighting and even spitting in the bird’s face. But when he arrives to take Tuesday, it’s completely different.
Tuesday is a joy who seems to have reconciled her fate, but also passes time engaging in conversation with the big bird about life, death, just becoming relaxed enjoying his company. She talks him into going small to take a much-needed bath. He admits he’s “filthy.” They proceed to get high together. She plays one of her favorite songs which is one of the bird’s favs too. They talk about life, if there’s after-life, and grief, but it’s still pretty upbeat, until Mom comes home.
Throughout the film, Zora (Louis-Dreyfus) restrains emotion fighting this talking creature with its imposing deep voice debating the physical, mental, and spiritual theories of death. Kene actually acted in every scene wearing an orange suit so Louis-Dreyfus and Petticrew could play off each other. His appearance as a bird was added later in post and he alternately appears, at times very large, and then so small he could land in Tuesday’s ear. Cinematographer Alexis Zane and the effects team make all these fantastical perspective adjustments remarkably seamless.
We’ve traditionally conceived of Death as a Grim Reaper in black hooded robes with his scythe or as a dapper bon vivant as played by Brad Pitt in Meet Joe Black. Here we encounter a whole new conception of death juxtaposed as alternately sinister or comforting.
Louis-Dreyfus’ performance, filled with formidable low-key, sarcastic intensity is punctuated with rage and despair, shows how far a mother will go to protect her child. Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ interaction with the bird is a visually rich and astonishing experience. The story takes her character into a horror-filled turn that is both disturbing, heroic and this new cinematic envisioning of the character of Death is a jolt.
A24 1 Hour 51 Minutes R
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