Tallulah (2016)

Directed by: Sian Heder | 111 minutes | comedy, drama | Actors: Elliot Page, Allison Janney, Tammy Blanchard, Evan Jonigkeit, Felix Solis, David Zayas, Uzo Aduba, Fredric Lehne, Evangeline Ellis, Liliana Ellis, John Benjamin Hickey, Zachary Quinto, Maddie Corman

The track is a bit off. That’s the least you can say about the young bum Tallulah and her boyfriend Nico. Together they wander across the US in a beat-up van. They eat what the garbage can buy, they shower in truck parking spaces. But after Nico leaves her, Tallulah must make new plans. She actually wants to climb the entire Himalayas, but because she doesn’t know where those mountains are, she leaves for New York.

In New York, there is a series of curious incidents involving degenerate mothers, sad mothers, missing mothers, missing babies, charming doormen, paintings begging to be daubed, and so on. It’s a shame to tell more about this, ‘Tallulah’ has to rely partly on the surprises in the plot. The most important storyline is the one about Tallulah and her former mother-in-law, also because we perceive the main theme in it: the curse and the blessing of parenthood.

‘Tallulah’ is a comedy drama that inevitably evokes the name Sundance. This annual festival of crowd-pleasing American arthouse produces quite a few Tallulahs every year. The story and the characters are a bit wacky, the images and (especially) the sound are on the unpolished side, but otherwise no one will be disappointed. Moreover, the film has a lot of quirky humor, another typical feature of a Sundance film.

The actors also come from the public-friendly alternative corner. We remember Allison Janney as the creepy mother from ‘I Tonya’. Elliot Page once stole our hearts as Juno in the coming-of-age of the same name. And then there’s Uzo Adube, who made waves as Suzan ‘Crazy Eyes’ Warren in ‘Orange is the New Black’. New York is, as usual, a fine and familiar film setting, the music does not disturb but also does not stand out.

The result is a film that is never very special, but always amusing. The drama slowly builds up to a satisfying climax, although the lead up to it is a bit too long. That’s not a bad thing, because ‘Tallulah’, like most Sundance films, is of solid quality. And sometimes that’s enough.