Review of Tideland (2005) by Bum D — 19 Feb 2009

An absolute mess of a film.

It seems like the acting direction for Adelle and Dickens was "You act crazy, you act like a weird, prairie half wit".

This movie brings nothing new, the story is, I don't know, where is it?

Is this the story of a little girl coping with personal horror or the story of a little girl being a "yucky kisser" who wants to see the half wits "special secret"?

Also, when old men try to write young female sexuality it always sounds forced and weird, completely unnatural.

This film is a step in the right direction, it's not nearly as abysmally awful as "The Brothers Grimm" but Gilliam is way too close to the source material and he tries to do way too much, instead of settle down and just make one story.

The film feels like 4 different people are directing it and 3 of them are doing a crap job.

And the girl is actually kind of awful as an actor, she's forced precociousness. She's not a little girl losing herself in fantasy because that's how she entertains herself and copes, she's a little girl acting cute and adorable because she knows someone is watching.

The difference between seeing a kid playing alone in their room and a kid performing for adults at a dinner party, one is real and natural, the other is forced and obnoxious.

Also Gilliam needs to learn some new camera angles and techniques besides the shaky sideways close up to show someone is fucked up and crazy.

At times this feels like a student film. At other times you can see that ol' Gilliam magic slowly peaking through.

This could've been incredible based just on the bare bones of the story.

Little girl and her junkie dad go to the prairie, her dad dies almost immediately, she loses herself talking to doll heads and discovers strangers and weirdos.

Want to know what would've improved this film and for the life of me I can't figure out why Gilliam didn't do it? Animate the doll heads.

Film is a visual medium baby, and we know you have the technical know-how to do it and do it right, animate the heads! Instead of just giving us shots with these barbie heads just staring at us blankly while we hear the girls voice creating dialog between her and them. I mean, we hear the doll talking without the girls lips moving so why not go the whole way and animate the heads?

So much of this film could've been cut.

Also Gilliams introduction was pretty strange, especially when he talks about how he discovered his inner child was a younger southern girl, a young southern girl who then wants to see the half-wit's "special secret" and be a "yucky kisser" with him.

This kind of movie should only be done on a very low budget, it would've been incredible is the pacing had been different, this would've been incredible if a lot of things had been different.

Better luck tomorrow Terry. Good luck finding financing for Man of La Mancha, you are insane.