Tallulah

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Here's one from just a couple of years ago that features Best Supporting Actress, Allison Janney, in another supporting role - but another really good and overlooked supporting role.

Tallulah, or "Lu" (Ellen Page) is a runaway who gets into a fight with her boyfriend, Nico (Evan Jonigkeit) when he decides he wants more out of life. Understandably, he takes off, but he does so while she's asleep. She looks for him at his mother, Margo's (Janney) apartment, but fails to get any answers as to where he is, having walked out on Margo two years ago.

Lu heads to a nearby hotel, with nowhere else to go. In a really messed up turn of events, Lu is mistaken by a woman named Carolyn (Tammy Blanchard), as a housekeeper, and asks her to watch her baby while she goes out on a date. Seeing a unique opportunity to rescue a kid from a deadbeat mother, and get Margo on her side, Lu kidnaps the baby, and claims it to be Nicos, earning her a foot in Margo's door.

Throughout the film, the search is on for Lu, and it's somewhat hard to believe that since Margo and Carolyn are neighbors, she isn't caught sooner. But the, we wouldn't have much of a movie here. The more important aspects of this film are in the questions it asks of it's audience. Perhaps most frequently "what would you do in this situation?" The execution of it all is actually kind of intense, and you just can't tell if you're supposed to like Lu or not. Is she a hero for taking this baby away from her mother, who is an alcoholic who barely pays attention to her, or are things more black and white in that hell, she literally kidnapped this kid?

The charm also lies in the character development between Lu and Margo. It's almost like it's the mother-daughter relationship that they never knew they needed. Lu loosens Margo's overall attitude up, and makes her think about the bigger things in life, often in humorous ways. On the other hand, Margo educates Lu about raising her "daughter", and teaches her the responsibility she never received as a kid.

I won't lie, this movie made me feel some pretty empathetic emotions the whole way through. However, some sort of obviously outweigh others. For instance, I'd have called child services on this woman instead of, y'know, kidnapped this kid just to try to find my partner who ran away from me. It's a strange combination of emotions you get from this. At times, you hate Lu, but at others, you can't help but admire how proud she is just to be her. At times, she's actually a lot of fun, despite the fact that she's pretty much a brat.

It's an interesting movie, and a bit of a thinker (as in "what if this was me?") and both Ellen Page and Allison Janney play very likable, humanized characters. It's a Netflix original, so it might be worth checking out for yourself if you have the means. I didn't exactly love it, but it gave me enough that I stuck with it and found it enjoyable all the same. It even ends on an interesting note that one will have to read deeply into (symbolism) but from what I got from it, I thought it was a decent way to end things. So, if you like an ending you have to give some thought, try it out, you might enjoy it.

3/5

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