Tallulah

There was so much I loved about Tallulah, the Netflix movie with Ellen Page and Allison Janey. Page plays Tallulah, a young drifter whose boyfriend leaves her because he wants a more conventional life. Needing money and missing him she goes to NYC to try to find him, tracking down his mom (Janey). While slinking through the hallways of a fancy hotel to eat leftover room service, Tallulah gets roped into babysitting for a drugged up crazy insecure narcissist woman. The baby is clearly neglected, and when the woman finally comes home in the morning and passes out, Tallulah leaves and impulsively takes the baby. She has no idea what she is doing (just getting the baby out of an awful situation), and the rest of the movie is about her connecting with her boyfriend's mother (who thinks the baby is her granddaughter) and trying to escape the authorities looking for the kidnapper.

What makes Tallulah special are the little moments and the developing relationship between the lost drifter and the high strung middle aged woman. Both actors communicate subtle shifts in emotions and awareness, and it was a real pleasure watching them. There was also a sad emotional current running through the whole movie, even the funniest scenes.