Scene Selection — Geoff Carter: ‘Tully’ takes its time in telling a thoughtful story

Friday, Aug. 1, 2003 | 8:40 a.m.

Geoff Carter is a Seattle based free-lance film critic and entertainment writer. Reach him at carter@pre2k.com.

In his review of writer/director Hilary Birmingham's 2000 debut film, "Tully," finally available on DVD (Hart Sharp Video, $22.99), Roger Ebert wrote that the film confirmed a long-held suspicion of his: "Audiences are more touched by goodness than by sadness."

"Tully" has its sad moments, but Birmingham's film looks to the other side of them, to the healing of those hurts. It's one of the most honest films I've ever seen.

Adapted from Tom McNeal's story "What Happened to Tully," Birmingham's film seems almost static at first. We meet the Coates family and friends, each in their element: sons Earl and Tully Jr. are working the family dairy farm; family friend Ella (Julianne Nicholson) comes home from veterinary school to entrance the brothers, particularly Earl (Glenn Fitzgerald); Tully Sr. (Bob Burrus) sits quietly in his truck, pondering a foreclosure notice. Nothing seems out of place.

But there's a lot happening behind the film's quiet, stoic countenance. Tully Jr. (Anson Mount), the Tully the story is named for, is a peerless rakehell. His small Nebraska farm town boasts an abundance of pretty girls, and he's seduced the entire pretty lot of them.

His latest, April, an immature and petty "burlesque dancer," isn't much liked, and the townsfolk begin questioning the company Tully keeps.

"I think the reason girls like you is because you've got this bland face," April says to Tully Jr. "If the light's right, you can make it into anything."

In fact, Tully Jr. barely knows what to make of himself in the mirror. He's the worst kind of S.E. Hinton caricature -- until Tully Sr. begins revealing a series of family secrets, long-buried pains that will irrevocably change everyone around him.

Even before Tully Sr. reveals his wounds, they affect his offspring. Earl learns what it means to be his father's son, and Tully Jr. falls in love with Ella, while Tully Sr. exorcises some old demons and reacquaints himself with others.

Birmingham doesn't accent the revelations, failures and epiphanies of the Tully men with syrupy music or stunt camera -- it all happens quietly, subtly, as such things happen in life.

That Birmingham can finesse these classic human struggles and keep "Tully" on course is just one of the grand surprises this modest picture has to offer. The other is Nicholson, a minor player on "Ally McBeal" who has real star quality in "Tully." She is wholesome and grounded, yet playfully seductive: Just try to resist her charms when she sidles up to Tully and playfully whispers to him.

Nicholson will be one to watch, as will Birmingham. While the director didn't write the source material and is only partly responsible for the film's rich golds and greens -- director of photography John Foster shoots the farm as Van Gogh painted cornfields -- Birmingham's style and talent is evident from the first frames of "Tully."

The director may take things slowly, but the story is progressing; wheels are turning.

The deliberateness of "Tully" is a welcome change from the programmed emotions of most Hollywood films -- and its goodness, true to Roger Ebert's word, is profoundly touching.