Movie Review: Tuesday

4 stars out of 5

Tuesday is the day to go to the Clairidge Theater in Montclair, because that’s discount day. But we who are truly in the know (and who have a member discount anyway) will go on Wednesdays, when no one is around. (They all went on Tuesday.) Things didn’t work out for me this week, however. Wednesday, as you know, was a national holiday. But what I couldn’t predict was a kid’s birthday party at a screening of Inside Out 2. (Since returning under new ownership during the pandemic, the Clairidge has been showing mainstream releases in addition to their standard indie fare.) Would I ever make it to the concession stand behind this giggling pack of children ordering Gummi Worms and Hi-C fruit punch? Maybe I shouldn’t have picked Wednesday to see Tuesday.

I had the last laugh, however. Because theater 5 was nice and quiet and, in your face, kiddies: My movie even had a talking parrot!

OK, the parrot represented Death, but, still. This is a pretty fascinating movie anchored by two wonderful performances. The story, at its most basic, is a mother (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) trying to cope with the imminent death of her teenage daughter Tuesday (Lola Petticrew). Oh, and there’s a parrot, who is the Grim Reaper, continually flying around the world killing living things whose time is up: the old, the sick, the injured. Beg, plead, bargain, but it’s no use. The parrot — haunted by your pain — will not be swayed.

Until he meets Tuesday, that is. Pale, frail, wheelchair-bound, labored-breathing Tuesday. The parrot does not grant her a new lease on life, per se — but is moved by Tuesday’s kindness. (Some of this sequence is stupid.) The parrot puts just enough extra time on the clock so Tuesday can say goodbye to her mom. And then a whole series of things happen that I won’t spoil.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus is as good as she’s ever been, madly rotating through the five stages of grief, while still being the sharp, funny Louis-Dreyfus we count on. Lola Petticrew, who is new to me, is terrific. Her Tuesday is proud, stubborn, innocent, awe-struck, afraid, but never self-pitying. (They’re in England and Tuesday has a British accent but Mom doesn’t and there’s no mention of Dad or their backstory, and it honestly doesn’t matter.) You could almost take the parrot out of the equation, but it does put Death in a larger context — death is everywhere, always — while pointing out that to the mourning, nothing and no one else exist in the world. It’s just the dying, the grieving, and the parrot.

I became a wee bit angry at the movie very late in the game, when the script kind of claimed to have all the answers. Um, ya don’t, debut feature writer/director Daina Oniunas-Pusic. Let the mystery be, as Iris DeMent once sang. (Or at least wait a little longer in your career before waxing so philosophic.) But overall, I really appreciated this offbeat yet still affecting meditation on death and the mother-daughter bond. And now for some strange reason, I want a cracker.