Editor’s Note: This story contains spoilers about the movie “Tully.”
Story highlights
We used to hear how great motherhood is; now, we see in film and TV how terrible it is
Postpartum psychosis is a rare and serious mental illness featured in the new film "Tully"
For most of cinematic history, on-screen mothers have been a tame bunch. They were observers and healers, drivers and cheek-crumb wipers. They could be wise but rarely were given the chance to reveal how they earned this wisdom. Back stories, with all their tension and grit, have a way of humanizing us, and mothers weren’t allowed to be fully human.
No more. A new crop of entertainment about motherhood has turned its eye toward the inner lives of motherhood, exploring feelings and storylines that were long overlooked. “Tully,” a new film featuring Charlize Theron, is about a mother’s experience with feeling lost – and, eventually, kind of found – after the birth of her third chi