My Nanny, My Self: Tully

Tully is a night nanny who arrives at Marlo's house after dark -- like a vampire. Okay, not like a vampire. Like a brownie. Or an elf. Which might explain why Marlo (played by Charlize Theron) never seems to worry too much about shoes.

Tully was played by actress Mackenzie Davis who played the role so well that it seemed a cheat to realize that the real problem with Tully was that -- ah, but that would be telling.

Needless to say, Tully was hardly the first movie I ever saw that argued that motherhood sucked. Indeed, movies and TV shows have been poking fun at the tendency to glamorize motherhood since the days of Lucy Ricardo. But it was the most imaginative such movie that I've seen in quite a while. And it seemed even more amazing when I considered the fact that it was created by writer/director Diablo Cody, a woman I still think of as the author of Candy Girl.

I must confess that I was a bit reluctant to watch this movie. Diablo Cody does not have the best of records when it comes to movies and God knows she has received her share of bad reviews in the past. Moreover, I could not help but wonder prior to watching this movie how many single moms Ms. Cody might have come to know while researching her first book Candy Girl -- moms who undoubtedly had even worse problems than poor Marlo and yet were still considered unworthy of a screenplay.

And yet Tully won me over despite all my misgivings. Granted, I was a bit surprised that the movie's big plot twist wasn't a bit more controversial. And I can't help but wonder whether the movie would have ever been made if it were not for that particular twist. For that matter, how seriously should we take Cody's attempt at a happy ending? Er, that ending was happy, wasn't it?

Perhaps I should just shut up and concentrate on that nice mermaid scene toward the end. After all, mermaids are pretty. Mermaids are nice. Diablo Cody should include more of them in her future projects. But then this movie wasn't really about mermaids. Or was it?