SNAPSHOT
Tallulah, the Netflix original film, was written and directed by Sian Heder (Orange is the New Black), and tells the story of young vagabond, Lu (Ellen Page – Whip It, Inception), who lives in a van and is fiercely independent in her hand-to-mouth existence. When a chance encounter incites her to impulsively “rescue” a baby from a negligent mother, Lu, at a loss for what to do, turns to the only responsible adult she knows: Margo (Allison Janney – Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, The Way, Way Back), who mistakenly believes she’s the child’s grandmother. Tammy Blanchard (Into the Woods, Moneyball), Zachary Quinto (Star Trek, Girls), John Benjamin Hickey (The Good Wife, Manhattan) and Uzo Aduba (Orange is the New Black, The Wiz Live!), also round out the cast. (synopsis via Hollywood News)
Life isn’t easy.
That’s hardly a revelation but it is a fertile ground for meaningful indie drama, one which Tallulah, which was granted the honour of official selection at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, occupies with meaning and purpose.
Through the story of Lu, who was abandoned by her mother at age six and subscribes to the maxim that it’s better not to be needed, and Margo who watched as her dream of being part of a loving family fell away from her, we come to appreciate how important family, biological or found, is in shaping who we are, how we approach life, and our sense of belonging and purpose.
It’s a poignant reminder that we should never dismiss anyone we meet as a potential family member since life has a way of bringing together people who on the surface aren’t obviously compatible but who come to matter more than they could have imagined to each other.
In the Variety review, Geoff Berkshire notes that the theme of connectedness percolates through the entire film:
“Page is simply superb in a complex role that perfectly plays to her gift for balancing deadpan comedy with surprisingly deep emotional reserves. And while she was a sterling support opposite Page in Juno, Janney rises here nearly to the level of co-lead as an uptight control freak whose desire to cling to her family only serves to push them away. The film could probably do without a half-baked subplot involving Margo’s relationship with her doorman (Felix Solis), but even in that digression Janney nails the physical comedy and pathos of a woman looking to make a connection.”
No, life isn’t easy and it can challenge in ways both exhilarating and profoundly distressing but we can weather it all, even the very worst of it, if we have people who matter and with whom we are intimately and deeply connected, standing side by side with us through it all.
Tallulah premieres on Netflix on 29 July.