Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Tuesday’ on Max, a dark comedy from A24 in which Julia Louis-Dreyfus confronts death in the form of a parrot (2024)

Julia Louis-Dreyfus is the primary draw of Tuesday (now streaming on Max), but the real star of the film is Death. Yes, as in the Grim Reaper him/her/them/itself, who/which, in this particular – and particularly strange – movie, takes the form of a large macaw. Yes, as in Polly Wants A Cracker, but in this case, it wants to collect your soul. Yes, as in your life force or energy or essence or whatever you want to call it, the pulpy juice of which first-time feature-film writer and director Daina O. Pusic aims to explore via a story of a dying teenager, a mom in denial and their realization that a big bird who just so happens to be a hip-hop fan (no, really) has appeared in their lives to teach them something about life. Ironic, ain’t it?

TUESDAY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: The first character we meet is Death, a CGI creation voiced by Arinze Kene, who I sure hope is running his line-readings through some vocal-processing effects, because otherwise, his throat must be shredded like Buscemi in the woodchipper. Death is a grubby, soot-blackened macaw who can shrink down to earwig size or up to about moose height, although he mostly stays somewhere in-between. He has one scarred, mottled eye and his feathers are battered and worn. It goes without saying, but I’m gonna say it anyway: Dude has seen some shit. We watch as he flies here and there, granting suffering people eternal peace with a simple wave of his wing.

Next we meet Tuesday (Lola Petticrew) as she lies quietly in bed, attached to medical monitors, an oxygen tube connected to her nose. A nurse (Leah Harvey) uses a hoist to lift Tuesday out of bed and into a wheelchair. The specifics of her malaise are never spoken, and we can take some guesses, but what does it matter? It’s not good, and considering who we met in scenes prior, we know this is one of those it’s-only-a-matter-of-time situations. Tuesday’s mother, Zora (Louis-Dreyfus), is supposed to be working, but instead, she hocks weird heirlooms (taxidermied rats) for cash and sits in a cafe, doodling mindlessly in a notebook. Death from the professional human society division has long since waved its wing at her employment. And so here Zora barely exists, in a wide-eyed vagueness of avoidance and denial.

Tuesday’s wheezing seems to summon the bird, who’s tormented by a din of voices, countless suffering souls calling out to him to end their pain. But the girl isn’t afraid of Death. He shrinks and she captures him gently in her palms and gives him a bath and he grows and gives her a hug. And although he asserts that he’s here on this day to follow through with his duty (“Please don’t kill me.” “I must I must I must I must.”), he also shows appreciation for the kindness she expressed. And before you know it, they’re subverting the heavy-duty symbolism of accepting lowercase-d death by rapping along together to Ice Cube’s ‘It Was a Good Day’ and vaping cannabis. This is all well and good, but two things are inevitable here: One, Zora will have to come to terms with her denial, and it may take being confronted by a giant macaw to do so. And two, who’s taking care of Death’s duties while he’s making friends with a sweet dying girl? I mean, there’s gotta be some serious reaper-cussions for that.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The kid-hangs-with-a-symbolic-entity stuff is reminiscent of the kinda underrated A Monster Calls while Louis-Dreyfus’ attempts to navigate the surrealist existentialism of the situation vibes in an offbeat manner like Dream Scenario.

Performance Worth Watching: Louis-Dreyfus finds a road less traveled here, and has established herself as a strong, worthy lead for left-of-center films like this, Enough Said and You Hurt My Feelings.

Memorable Dialogue: “I get that that’s confidential information.” – Zora backtracks on a question she poses to Death, re: whether or not there’s an afterlife or a god

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: As soon as the large talking bird-that-is-also-Death raps along with Cube, you know Tuesday’s gonna be divisive. Maybe Pusic’s making all this too self-consciously strange; maybe she’s testing the limits of our tolerance of magical realism. But there’s no denying that it’s daring, and more than a little bit crazy, which turns yet another tearjerker about Grief And Loss into a dark, absurdist comedy that feels rooted in classical myths and aims to make profound observations about the inevitabilities of existence. It doesn’t quite coalesce tonally, and its ironies tend to be overstated (e.g., Tuesday is calm and, while attached to an oxygen tank, instructs everyone around her to inhale and exhale their way through anxiety attacks caused by her condition), but you can’t help but admire the risks Pusic takes in pursuit of a distinctive vision.

What wasn’t a risk? Casting Louis-Dreyfus to anchor the movie, playing a mother who can’t accept the reality in front of her, and has lost her mooring. She’s an absurd and tragic character who sells off her belongings and quits her job and slowly tries to become nothing, in the hopes of either no longer being able to feel all this pain, or perhaps to sacrifice enough of herself to the great cosmic karmic universe to keep Tuesday on this planet. All this manifests in the subtext of Louis-Dreyfus’ performance, while the text explores the extremes of her avoidance and compulsive rage.

Meanwhile, the world around these people (and the bird) sours apocalyptically while Death goes AWOL, and the implication is, Zora’s actions are an attempt to make the world stop turning, to keep her beloved daughter in stasis. It won’t. That’s not how it all works. There are times when you’ll feel at arm’s length from the oddity on hand in Tuesday, but when Louis-Dreyfus digs deep to find the love and strength buried within her character, there’s no choice but to feel moved by her suffering – and to understand how surreal it is to be so alarmingly in the presence of death.

Our Call: Julia Louis-Dreyfus saves Tuesday from being too weird or too maudlin. That’s no small feat. STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.