Can the terrifying mystery of death be in any way explained, or its wrenching pain softened, by a quirky hipster movie fantasy about the angel of death being a talking macaw? The answer, as provided by this bafflingly irrelevant and shallow film from first-time feature director Daina O Pusic, is a resounding no. Tuesday stars the estimable Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who has graduated from comic masterpieces such as Seinfeld and Veep to a serious movie career. But how frustrating to see a performance of this quality marooned in the middle of such pointless silliness.
The film’s setting is a London suburb (there is co-production funding from BBC Film and the BFI) where a 15-year-old British kid called Tuesday, played by Lola Petticrew, is dying at home of a terminal illness, conceivably lung cancer. Her American mom is Zora, fiercely played by Louis-Dreyfus, who theoretically is out at work while a nurse (Leah Harvey) looks after Tuesday. But Zora, convulsed with denied grief and on the verge of a breakdown, has secretly abandoned her job and hangs around cafes and parks all day and sells everything in the house to pay for Tuesday’s care.
