Tuesday (2024)

🎭 Story Kernel

Tuesday is a profound exploration of the messy, agonizing architecture of grief, centered on a mother, Zora, who refuses to acknowledge her daughter Tuesday’s terminal reality. The film moves beyond standard melodrama by personifying Death as a weary, size-shifting macaw. This choice reframes mortality not as a shadowy specter, but as a burdened entity exhausted by the cacophony of the dying. The narrative arc traces Zora’s journey from violent denial—literally attempting to consume or destroy Death—to a state of radical acceptance. It expresses the idea that death is not an intruder to be defeated, but a natural, albeit painful, integration into the rhythm of life. By forcing a dialogue between the living, the dying, and the Reaper, the film captures the desperate, often irrational lengths a parent will go to protect a child from the inevitable, ultimately finding beauty in the release.

🎬 Visual Aesthetics

The visual language of Tuesday hinges on the jarring juxtaposition of the domestic and the divine. The macaw is a masterpiece of symbolic design; its feathers are tattered and stained, suggesting the ancient, unglamorous labor of ushering souls. Its ability to shift scale—from a tiny garden visitor to a room-filling titan—perfectly mirrors the psychological weight of terminal illness, which can feel manageable one moment and suffocating the next. Cinematographer Alexis Zabé uses a grounded, almost tactile palette that makes the surreal elements feel disturbingly real. The use of close-ups on the bird’s cosmic, multifaceted eyes suggests a perspective that spans the universe, contrasting sharply with the claustrophobic, lived-in interiors of the family home. This visual tension reinforces the film's central theme: the intersection of the mundane reality of caregiving with the vast, incomprehensible nature of the end of life.

🔍 Details & Easter Eggs

💡 Behind the Scenes

Tuesday marks the feature directorial debut of Croatian filmmaker Daina Oniunas-Pusić, who previously gained acclaim for her surreal short films. The project serves as a significant dramatic departure for Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who is primarily known for her legendary comedic roles in Seinfeld and Veep. To bring the macaw to life, the production utilized a combination of sophisticated CGI and on-set puppetry to give the actors a physical presence to interact with. The film was produced by A24 and premiered at the 50th Telluride Film Festival in 2023, where it was noted for its unconventional approach to mortality.