Actress Charlize Theron will be honored during the 2018 San Francisco International Film Festival with a special tribute, followed by a screening of her new film, Jason Reitman’s Tully.
The intimate onstage conversation and the screening will take place Sunday, April 8, at 7:30pm at the Castro Theatre. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Charlize Theron and Jason Reitman.
“Charlize Theron’s talent is obvious and impressive, but we also admire her interest in portraying a huge range of personalities, working on both complex physical performances and smaller, intimate portraits,” said SFFILM Director of Programming Rachel Rosen. “We look forward to celebrating a stellar performer who has contributed to the creation of a powerful and memorable cast of characters.”
That Charlize Theron can utterly transform herself and transfix an audience was apparent from her early days on screen. By 2003, Theron was a master of her art, something never more apparent than in her role that year as serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Patty Jenkins’s Monster. Theron’s fierce, empathetic, and multiple-award-winning performance struck a chord with audiences, critics, and her fellow actors. Since then, Theron has continued to build an impressive body of work, receiving a second Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of a miner who sues her company for sexual harassment in North Country (2005), reviving George Miller’s Mad Max franchise with her ferocious turn as the warrior Imperator Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), and mixing slaughter and spycraft in the Cold War-era thriller Atomic Blonde (2017). In 2011, Theron collaborated with screenwriter Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman on Young Adult, starring as a former teen queen bee determined to win back her old boyfriend. Now, the trio reunites for Tully and another singular role for Theron, this time as a stretched-thin mom of three who recovers her joie de vivre with the help of her new night nanny.
In Tully, Marlo (Charlize Theron) has lost her youth to motherhood and while expecting her third child is completely burnt out. When her brother (Mark Duplass) suggests a night nanny–someone to help with the newborn and assist Marlo–she reluctantly agrees, welcoming a stranger named Tully into her home. Grounded by the extraordinary performance of Theron, beautifully delivering the smart and hilarious dialogue written and directed with great care by frequent collaborators Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman, Tully details all aspects of motherhood–including the necessities of being an adult–however unglamorous they may be.
Tully marks Jason Reitman’s third collaboration with screenwriter Diablo Cody, after Juno (2007), for which Reitman received an Oscar nomination for his direction, and Young Adult (2011). Among his other films are Thank You for Smoking (2005), for which Reitman won an Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay; Up in the Air (2009), the recipient of six Oscar nominations, including nods for Reitman for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay; Labor Day (2013); and Men, Women & Children (2014).