A mother and her dying daughter.

 

 Well, at least it's not the same old, same old.

 We're talking about Tuesday, a story in which a mother (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) struggles with her terminally ill 15-year-old daughter (Lola Petticrew). The premise may not sound novel, but director Daina O. Pusic begins with a wildly allegorical gambit: Death appears as a talking macaw that grows or shrinks in size.

  The bird (a visual effect voiced by Arise Kene) displays a variety of personalities. It can be comforting, ominous, naive, or exhausted.

   How could it not be weary? The macaw has spent centuries working overtime as he attends to the dying. He remembers the historical figures he helped usher into the great beyond, Jesus included.

  The bird's design avoids suggestions of cuteness. Gawking and even ugly, the nameless macaw speaks with a voice that sometimes degenerates into an incomprehensible growl. A cacophony of human voices buzz inside the macaw's head, a woeful chorus of sufferers pleading for release.

   The human characters in the sparsely populated movie also include a nurse (Leah Harvey) who tends to Tuesday when her mother leaves home to sell household items and personal treasures to help pay for her daughter's care.

  A scene in which Louis-Dreyfus's Zora visits a taxidermy shop to sell a pair of stuffed rats dressed as Catholic bishops sums up what she's been doing since she quit her job to tend to Tuesday.

    For much of the movie, mother and daughter have different relationships with the macaw. For Tuesday, the bird is a companion and a curiosity. 

   In an amusing scene, Tuesday creates a makeshift bird bath in a bathroom sink so the bird can wash away the dirty residue of its grim occupation. She also introduces the macaw to vaping.

    Mom, on the other hand, resists the bird's doom-struck call. A physical battle with the macaw results in a horror-tinged gross-out scene in which an unrelenting Louis-Dreyfus taps her inner rage.

   Unlike her daughter, Zora can't accept the idea that death is inevitable, universal, and, in some instances, a welcome end to suffering.

    Since the movie premiered at last fall's Telluride Film Festival, much has been made of Louis-Dreyfus's performance. Leaving the comedy vibes of Vice and Seinfeld behind, a haggard-looking Louis-Dreyfus plays a woman whose denial curdles into ferocity,

    At times, Louis-Dreyfus's performance flips over the top but she delivers in the key moments; Petticrew deftly combines the traits of normal adolescence with a growing acceptance that her time has come. She approaches the end without fear.

    Pusic, who lives in London and hails from Croatia, brings a bit of bleak Eastern European flavor to a story that treats magic realism with matter-of-fact bluntness. No explanations. No apologies. The macaw delivers death. That's that.

    Some viewers will laugh and shed tears. I can't say I did much of either. Still, I appreciated the creative audacity of a first-time director who tackles a question many would rather avoid: Does mortality mean anything in a universe too vast to notice our puny sorrows?