Tully (2000)

Tully Coates, Jr., with his good looks and chiseled body, is the local heartthrob, and while he has a new girlfriend virtually every night, he's incapable of getting close to anyone. His ... See full summary »

Director:

Hilary Birmingham

Writers:

Hilary Birmingham, Matt Drake,

Stars:

Glenn Fitzgerald, Anson Mount, Bob Burrus

5 wins & 6 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Glenn Fitzgerald	...	Earl Coates
Anson Mount	...	Tully Coates Jr.
Bob Burrus	...	Tully Russell Coates Sr.
Julianne Nicholson	...	Ella Smalley
Laura Walker	...	Wendy Adams
Joe Smalley	...	Brad
Tim Driscoll	...	Clarence Heiting
Aaron Zavitz	...	Chuck
Kristopher Kling	...	Dexter
Catherine Kellner	...	April Reece
Vivek Kumar	...	Essa
John Durbin	...	Marshall
V. Craig Heidenreich	...	Burt Hodges
Natalie Canerday	...	Claire
Kathryn Gayner	...	Irene Duffy (photos)

Storyline

Tully Coates, Jr., with his good looks and chiseled body, is the local heartthrob, and while he has a new girlfriend virtually every night, he's incapable of getting close to anyone. His younger brother Earl, the shy and sensitive type, frequents the local revival house. The only common bond between these disparate siblings is Ella Smalley, an intelligent and even-tempered young woman who returns to their Nebraska hometown to intern at a local veterinarian's clinic. Meanwhile, their father, Tully, Sr., a rancher who gets by with the help of his two sons, carries a brooding sadness, a hint of past wounds too long in healing. The family dynamic is changed forever when several secrets surface.

---

Plot Keywords:

rancher | nebraska | listening to radio | hydrolic truck | vomit | 

---

Genres:

Drama

---

Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for language and some sexual content

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

14 April 2000 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Truth About Tully

Filming Locations:

Ft. Calhoun, Nebraska, USA

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

$21,162 (USA) (1 November 2002)

Gross:

$433,264 (USA) (28 March 2003)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Telltale Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

102 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

It was originally titled "The Truth About Tully" but was changed when Jonathan Demme's The Truth About Charlie was announced to be released around the same time.

---

Goofs

In the junkyard scene with Ella, the replacement hood they find on the yellow Cadillac is an early '80s style hood, but when the hood is shown on Tully's Cadillac, it's an early '70s style. The cowl lines are noticeably different between these two styles.

---

Quotes

Tully: You know what? Why don't you just go fuck yourself?

---

Connections

Featured in The 2003 IFP Independent Spirit Awards (2003)

User Reviews

3.5 stars (out of 4)

Tully Coates, Jr. (generally just called "Tully," played by Anson Mount) and his younger brother Earl (Glenn Fitzgerald from "The Sixth Sense") live on a farm in Nebraska with their father, Tully Coates, Sr. (usually called "Mr. Coates"). We first see the brothers in a field goofing off. Earl is hurt when some dirt ends up in his eye, their father is not happy about this *and* that they aren't working, and Tully isn't too upset. This is pretty much standard operating procedure: their father has no sense of humor, Tully gets away with whatever he wants to do, and Earl comes out on the short end of the deal.

The other significant characters are the women. April Reece, who works as a stripper but prefers to call it burlesque, is seeing Tully and would like to make that exclusive. Ella Smalley (Julianne Nicholson, a bright spot from the last season of "Ally McBeal") is a tomboy friend of Earl's who is sort of interested in Tully but sees how he sleeps around. Tully and Earl's mother is unseen, having left the family long ago, but she is still an important character. And finally, Claire (Natalie Canerday from "Sling Blade"), the grocery store checkout woman, likes Mr. Coates and is probably my favorite character in the film, although it's a small role.

I won't cover the plot, since there are a number of twists along the way. That said, the characters and their interactions are the heart of this film, and if the outcome had been different the film would still have been worth watching. Every so often the acting felt forced to me, although there were also other times when I found the acting to be wonderful and I also gather that most other viewers did not feel the same way.

I saw this on 11/17/2002 at the Camera Cinema Club in Silicon Valley, CA. The director, Hilary Birmingham, was there to answer questions and to apologize repeatedly about the VHS copy that we were forced to watch due to a film print lost in transit. It actually looked substantially better than one would have expected due to the high end digital projector, and I'm told by the club programmer that the picture was only slightly cropped, from 1.66:1 to 1.33:1. The screenplay, which Birmingham helped write, is based on a short (15 page) story which took place over a substantially longer period of time than this film does. Birmingham's background is in literature and documentaries, and she cited "The Last Picture Show," "Badlands," and "Days of Heaven" as influences.

The film was shot in only 24 days, under sometimes difficult circumstances. A few scenes, for example, were shot in the director's parents' garage in Massachusetts in the dead of winter. The heaters were too loud to keep running during shooting, but it was so cold that the set cooled down too fast when the heaters were turned off. Eventually they had to wrap some insulation around the whole garage to keep the heat in. On the positive side, it rained for 14 days straight just before the farm scenes were filmed, but then *didn't* for almost the entire shooting schedule.

The film got distribution quickly, but almost as quickly the distributor went bankrupt. Since the distributor listed the film as an asset, it was held up. And since the distributor was Canadian, the filmmaker had to learn Canadian bankruptcy law in order to get her film back. So this really is a 2000 film that is just now being released.

Given my minor misgivings about the acting and the VHS "print," I would probably give this a lower rating by half a star, which would still make it a film worth seeing. My guess is that on actual film this is a gem well worth seeking out.