Writer/director Daina O. Pusić makes her feature film debut with a remarkable film dealing with death’s reality. While some of the filmmaker’s choices are often bizarre or funny, Pusić makes a strong case for humane demise with dignity and much love and adoration for the value of life on Earth. The film stars Julia Louis Dreyfus and Lola Petticrew as a mother and daughter dealing with a terminal illness that will eventually change their lives forever.
In this movie, death comes in the form of a macaw parrot (the voice of Arinzé Kene) that visits people at the inevitable time of their death. With a strong flap of Death’s wing, every person on the verge of their demise departs their body and their world. Death’s latest destination is a young teen woman named Tuesday (Petticrew), a girl suffering from what seems to be a form of cancer whose mother, Zora (Dreyfus), has trouble facing her unavoidable future.
Upon contact with Death, Tuesday pleads with the bird to allow her more time with her mother to help them deal with what will most definitely happen. Though Zora fights hard to protect her daughter, she eventually discovers that death is a necessary part of life, regardless of how untimely an arrival it might be.
I absolutely love this movie. It offers audiences a mix of absurd humor but also heartbreak and reality. Death is an aspect of life that most people do not wish to accept. However, the truth is that death can be comforting to those suffering from intense pain and sorrow. Also, while the death of a loved one is excruciating, life must prevail when one’s time is not up yet. Filmmaker Daina O. Pusić does a tremendous job of presenting a movie that mixes fantasy and reality in all of the best ways.
Julia Louis Dreyfus and Lola Petticrew are incredible in this strange but powerful indie film. While this movie doesn’t beg to be experienced in a theater, I feel that exceptional independent films deserve much success theatrically, as we don’t get movies like this or as good released in theaters like we used to. I highly recommend Tuesday, as it is an amazing film, and I look forward to what the director has in mind for her next film.