Julia Louis-Dreyfus Plays Mom Struggling With Daughter's Terminal Illness In New Drama

Has it been a while since you’ve had a good ugly cry? Great news! A24, the studio known for psychologically and emotionally intense yet quirky films has released a trailer for the upcoming drama Tuesday starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Lola Petticrew as a mother and daughter, and Arinzé Kene as Death... who appears in the form of a shapeshifting parrot.

The film premiered back in September at the Tullride Film Festival. No theatrical release date has been announced yet. The film follows the lives of Zora (Louis-Dreyfus) and her teenage daughter Tuesday (Petticrew), who is terminally ill. One day, a bedraggled, talking parrot appears before Tuesday, who secrets him in her pocket when she sees him shrink. But the parrot cannot be hidden for long, and with his entrance into the family’s lives, he — Death — forces Zora to confront the inevitable loss of her daughter.

Directed by debut filmmaker Daina O. Pusić, Tuesday describes itself as “a heart-rending fairy tale” that touches on themes of loss, grief, and resilience. Though reviews are somewhat (not many critics have seen the film yet), Tuesday currently boasts a 100% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics praise both performances and Pusic’s direction.

Essentially, if Julia Louis-Dreyfus ever made you laugh (and, between Seinfeld, Veep, and innumerable other movies and sitcoms, she definitely has) it seems as though she’s about to make up for it in this emotionally chaotic piece of cinema.

Social media response to the release of the emotional but beautiful trailer sparked immediate conversation, and prompted “Julia Louis-Dreyfus” to trend earlier this afternoon. Most responses looked something like this tweet from @CatStaggs. “I popped on here and saw Julia Louis-Dreyfus was trending, so I looked and saw the trailer... now I am completely broken... This is what I get for taking a break...now I have to walk it off and go back to work somehow.”

Louis-Dreyfus, who is a mother of two adult children, Henry and Charlie Hall, has publically reflected a lot about parenting and motherhood. Tuesday particularly deals with themes that reflect on an area of her own life that she has confessed has been difficult. “They crawl away from you. They go to school. It’s constant,” she told The New Yorker in 2018. “Separation has been a theme in my life, something I’ve really struggled with.”

And apparently, sometime this year, we’re all going to be riding that struggle bus with her.