Tuesday (2023)

Strange Fantasy Story About Death - Tuesday review by GI

A bizarre fantasy thematically focused on death and grieving but told in a truly baffling way saved somewhat by a riveting and committed performance from Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
She plays Zora the mother of fifteen year old Tuesday (Lola Petticrew) who is dying from a terminal illness. Zora has sold many of their possessions to pay for a nurse at home and has become depressed and frightened by the thought of losing her child. They are both shocked and surprised when death, in the form of a shape shifting macaw, arrives to take Tuesday. But Zora manages to delay this in a most unusual way!
The film at times feels silly and then switches to being most profound in it's dealings with the trauma of loss. This peculiar switch is jarring and renders the film watchable but confounding. There's moments of joy in this and Dreyfus' performance is sensitive, intuitive and at times remarkable aided by an equally solid Petticrew. But the bizarre hints at a major apocalypse going on too is bewildering and at odds with the film's attempts to explain death and even what comes afterwards.
A failed experiment.