Julia Louis-Dreyfus' new A24 dark comedy is a poignant depiction of grief and motherhood

The line between life and death is blurred in Tuesday, a new dark comedy from A24, starring Veep, Seinfeld, and Marvel's Julia Louis-Dreyfus. She plays Zora, a single mother living with her terminally ill daughter Tuesday (Lola Petticrew), a good-humored but lonely teenager. Her friends have long since given up visiting her, she says, and her only company is Billie (Leah Harvey), a sincere but socially awkward young nurse.

Zora, meanwhile, is notably absent. Billie visits their London townhouse every day to take care of Tuesday, while Zora floats aimlessly around the city pretending to be at work. In truth, she quit her job some time ago and now makes enough money to put food on the table and keep the lights on by selling anything she can from their home, from antique trinkets to the tiles off the bathroom walls. Anything to avoid her sick daughter.

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That is, until they're visited by Death, who, in this movie, takes the form of an orange, talking macaw. He can also change the size of his body at will, shrinking down small enough to fit in the corner of a human eye or growing to the size of a horse. Privy to the thoughts of the dying all over the world in an often overwhelming cacophony of voices in his head, Death can sense when he's needed. When he swoops onto the scene, he brushes a wing over the person who awaits him, and they take their last breath.

Acceptance and denial

When he visits Tuesday, however, Death has a panic attack before he can finish the job. Tuesday manages to calm him down and uses the opportunity to ask him to wait so she can talk to her mother before she dies. Zora doesn't answer the phone and Tuesday somehow convinces Death to hold on until she gets home (whenever that may be). As they try to pass the time, Death and Tuesday begin to bond – she jokes with him and bathes centuries of dirt off his feathers in the bathroom sink.

On her return, Zora is less accepting – of death, as a concept, and Death in his corporeal form in her home. She's not willing to let him finish his job without putting up a fight, and she takes matters into her own hands behind Tuesday's back. Fighting back against Death gives her a new purpose, but it's just a new kind of denial.

Life goes on

The film grapples with the complexities of parental grief and the ways in which we grieve a family member while they're still alive – there is, of course, no right way to lose a child. Knowing something is coming doesn't make it any easier and, while Tuesday has accepted her fate, unable to avoid the feeding tubes, oxygen tanks, and wheelchair of her daily life, her mother refuses to look reality in the eye. Death is neither a hero nor a villain in the movie. He's simply doing his job, a necessity to keep the world turning – one that becomes particularly apparent once he becomes otherwise indisposed thanks to Zora's best efforts.

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This is writer and director Daina O. Pusić's first feature, and there are some debut growing pains – tonally, it's a little odd at times and not all the humor hits its mark, but it's bold and imaginative. Louis-Dreyfus holds the film together with a nuanced performance, veering between absurdity, comedy, and sincerity with ease.

Zora is the film's most interesting character and, while the title may be her daughter's name, Tuesday is really all about a mother struggling with an impossible pain. Throughout the movie, Tuesday's impending death consumes Zora's life, whether she's trying her best to ignore it or prevent it. By selling their possessions, she's pawning what she sees as detritus from a life that's already slipped away from her and it's only when she's forced to confront Death, face to beak, that she can see a way to cling onto the remnants of that life – and how to hold onto that life to honor Tuesday after she's gone.

Tuesday arrives in UK cinemas on August 9. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.