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Film: Indie Flicks
Fate visits the family farm
By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 13, 2003
Tully (Not rated, probably R) (102 min.) -- Each year a movie gem slips through the cracks of the awards season, never receiving the audience and adoration it deserves. This year's sure-to-be lost treasure is Hilary Birmingham's farmland family drama Tully, a movie I'm embarrassed to admit lay unwatched in a stack of screener videos until after I composed a top 10 list for 2002. Tully would have made the list.
[Photo: Small Planet Pictures]
Anson Mount is ladies’ man Tully Coates Jr. and Julianne Nicholson is the girl-next-door Ella in the farm drama Tully.
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Tully is a deeply moving story of two men by that name: Tully Coates Jr. (Anson Mount) is the initial focus of the story, a backwoods Romeo dating a cut-rate stripper (Catherine Kellner) but slowly drawn to a girl-next-door named Ella (Julianne Nicholson). Tully Coates Sr. (Bob Burrus) is his supposedly widowed father, a grizzled farmer stunned by a $300,000 lien against his land.
The elder Tully told his namesake and his younger son, Earl (Glenn Fitzgerald), their mother died in a car crash. That lie is the first family secret revealed when the woman's recent medical bills are connected to the lien. Tragedy is inevitable on at least one of those counts.
More will be revealed, patiently by Birmingham, whose direction and co-authored screenplay have the rhythm of an engrossing book. The film that kept popping into my mind, in tone if not plot, was Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show, in which loneliness and desperation felt so alive that it excited the soul, rather than depressed it.
The performances are superb, with Mount making an impressive case for himself as a serious actor after a teen-dream gig with Britney Spears in Crossroads. Nicholson easily gains sympathy with her tomboy crush, and Fitzgerald is a marvel: When Earl's secret is revealed, the nuance of Fitzgerald's previous mannerisms becomes clear, suggesting a surprise without tipping it off.
Most impressive, however, is Burrus' work as Tully Sr. The 60ish actor has a terrific movie face, one John Ford would have loved in his movies, full of old-fashioned American pride, then pain and, finally, resignation. He's Bogdanovich's noble Sam the Lion character in Picture Show, a crusty link to a gentler past when character counted more than money.
Characters are briskly yet deeply etched in scenes with more cumulative effect than immediate resolution. Emotions are muted and therefore more wrenching. Birmingham admirably avoids melodramatic touches, even when circumstances are right for them. This is an assured debut from a filmmaker who will be a pleasure to watch for in the future.
Tully is a small film from a tiny distributor (Small Planet Pictures) that can't afford hundreds of prints to make it readily available to viewers. Like many of the best films, this one needs to be sought out; it won't drop into your lap at the megaplex.
People who see it remember it. Tully is nominated for four Independent Spirit Awards: best feature film, screenplay (Birmingham and Matt Drake), supporting female (Nicholson) and debut performance (Burrus, although he did Southern Comfort in 1981 and two soap operas). My conscience will make it easy to pull for them March 22, when those prizes are handed out. One viewing will do it for anyone else. A
Beauty's fight for survival
[Photo: MOSI]
MacGillivray Freeman’s Coral Reef Adventure is an indepth look at the struggling coral reefs of the South Pacific.
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MacGillivray Freeman's Coral Reef Adventure (Not rated, probably G) (43 min.) -- While the Columbia tragedy makes some people reconsider outer space exploration, a new IMAX film proves how much more we have to learn about inner space. The wonder of coral reefs, from Australia to Tahiti, is a subject so in-depth that snorkels should be handed out at the box office.
Narrator Liam Neeson provides the necessary data -- this is a museum piece, after all -- and selected songs by Crosby, Stills & Nash offer melodic underscoring. But the stars of the show are creatures of the deep relying upon fragile coral communes for mutual support and survival.
There is an enviable sense of cooperation among this diverse shoal of fish, crustaceans and plankton; watching a shrimp prepare living space for a huge cod in exchange for protection, or a tiny fish cleaning the inside of a larger one's mouth, is a lesson in trust for survival.
The film traces the studies of Howard and Michele Hall, underwater cinematographers called by a friend in Fiji to investigate why the island's coral reefs are dying.
Rising water temperatures are an obvious problem; only 2 degrees have a devastating impact on algae sustenance, shown with time-lapse photography. Overfishing is another culprit, since foreign countries don't abide by the same conservation customs of Fijians. Yet there is a third cause, discovered only through soggy deduction, and a solution proving nature takes care of its own, if humans allow it.
The film makes a strong conservationist argument for why we should. The medical benefits of underwater studies, for conditions from broken bones to AIDS, are convincing. But even without such practical advantages, the stunning beauty of these living coral structures and the life forms they attract is enough to make anyone wish for their survival.
Opens Friday at the IMAX Dome Theater at the Museum of Science and Industry in Tampa. The movie will continue in rotation with other IMAX presentations through Sept. 4. Visit the museum's Web site (www.mosi.org) or call (813) 987-6100 for show times. A-
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