Tallulah (Ellen Page), known to all as Lu, and Nico (Evan Jonigkeit) are a couple of young itinerants living hand to mouth out of their dilapidated van as they criss cross the country filling their gas tank courtesy of the credit card they stole from Nico’s mother. When Nico announces one day that he wants to pack it all in and suggests that they go back to New York and see his mother and maybe even get married, Lu is completely horrified and baulks at the very idea. So next day she wakes up alone to find that Nico has taken off and left her.
Penniless Lu makes it back to New York where her first port of call is Nico’s mother’s apartment, and when she finds that Nico is not there, she unsuccessfully tries to hit Margo (Allison Janney) up for some money instead. Later scrounging for food from room service trays left in a hotel hallway, she is mistaken as a member of the housekeeping staff by one of the guests. Carolyn (Tammy Blanchard) is a rather spaced out mother of a one-year-old child and who has come to NY for a discreet liaison with a man and is desperate for someone to babysit. Throwing handfuls of money at Lu and without even a second thought, she simply abandons the baby in her care and takes off.
When Carolyn comes back from her unsuccessful date totally drunk, she simply passes out on the bed, and as Lu cannot bring it on her herself to just leave the baby with her in this state she impulsively picks her up and takes off with her. A reluctant Margo thinking that this is her grandchild is persuaded to take both Lu and the baby in albeit temporary.
Margo is also dealing with her own issues as besides not having seen Nico for two years, her academic husband (John Benjamin Hickey) has deserted her and set up home with his much younger boyfriend (Zachary Quinto,) and now wants her to agree to a divorce which will put at risk her own central apartment which is part of her husband’s University tenure.
The opportunistic Lu insures that Margo starts bonding with her and the child even though she has hardly thought through the situation, which becomes even more apparent when the newspapers and TV are full of the details of the missing child and include a photograph of her taken from the hotel’s security cameras. Meanwhile over on the other side of the city a sober and desperate Carolyn aware that some of her choices have been far from sound so far (!) now genuinely seems less like a spoilt trophy bride and more like a mother frightened at the real prospect of losing her child, which would also entail being dumped by her husband too.
Tallulah is the screen feature directing/writing debut of Sian Heder one of main writers of O.I.T.N.B. who has made this a powerful story about the three main female characters, with the male ones barely getting a look in. Reuniting Page and Janney (they played daughter and mother in Juno which was Page’s Oscar nominated breakthrough role) was a perfect casting choice. Page always surprises with her ability to imbue her roles with such a convincing nonchalant air that disguises the true depth of her feelings, which in this case turned out to be surprisingly maternal by the end. Janney is compelling as the middle-aged woman who feels that everyone has completely abandoned her and whose quiet anger has led her to being so rigidly set in her ways until Lu and the baby threaten to change everything.
It is however Blanchard’s rather inspired turn as the uninvolved mother that is by far the best performance of the movie. As Carolyn she is so out of her depths but then finds her own salvation by the end in a manner that has us actually rooting for her even though we know we shouldn’t. It’s possible a career-best from this very talented character actress.
Kudos too for Uzo Aduba who plays a pregnant cop from Child Services Unit who can barely disguise her contempt for the self-indulgent Carolyn.
Heder shows a deft touch adding some inspired comic pieces that lighten what was potentially a very melodramatic scenario and makes this very nuanced tale a fascinating one to watch unfurling. The fact that we always know that it really will not end in tears for anyone makes it both more entertaining and convincing too.
