Tideland (film)

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Tideland
Tideland movie poster
Directed by	Terry Gilliam
Produced by	Gabriella Martinelli Jeremy Thomas
Written by	Tony Grisoni (screenplay) Terry Gilliam (screenplay) Mitch Cullin (novel)
Starring	Jodelle Ferland Jeff Bridges Brendan Fletcher Janet McTeer Jennifer Tilly
Music by	Jeff Danna Mychael Danna
Cinematography	Nicola Pecorini
Distributed by	Revolver Entertainment (UK) ThinkFilm (USA) Capri Films (Canada) HanWay Films (sales)
Release date(s)	9 September 2005 (Toronto Film Festival) 9 February 2006 (Russia, limited) 11 August 2006 (UK, limited) 27 October 2006 (USA, limited)
Running time	122 min
Language	English
Budget	$12,000,000
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Tideland (2005) is a film co-written and directed by Terry Gilliam, an adaptation of Mitch Cullin's novel Tideland. The movie was shot in Regina, Saskatchewan and surrounding area in the fall and winter of 2004. The world premier was at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival, where the film was met with mixed response from both viewers and critics. After little interest from U.S. distributors, ThinkFilm picked the film up for a U.S. release date in October 2006.

1 Film festivals
2 Film plot
3 Critical and public reaction
4 Movie cast overview
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Film festivals

After the usual amount of mixed reviews that accompany any new Terry Gilliam film, Tideland was awarded the FIPRESCI Prize at Spain's 2005 San Sebastian Festival, selected by an international jury of critics that, in their award statement, said: "Our jury focused on the international competition and found Terry Gilliam's Tideland to be the best film of the selection — a decision which provoked controversial reactions." The jury consisted of Andrei Plakhov, Russia, President (Kommersant), Julio Feo Zarandieta, France (Radio France Internationale), Wolfgang Martin Hamdorf, Germany (filmdienst), Massimo Causo, Italy (Corriere Del Giorno), Sergi Sanchez, Spain (La Razon).

[edit] Film plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Tideland is a macabre, darkly surreal film about an abandoned child named Jeliza-Rose (Jodelle Ferland). The story centers on Jeliza-Rose's solitary adventures during one summer in rural Texas while staying at a rundown farmhouse called What Rocks, and focuses on the increasingly dark, imaginative fantasy life the girl creates with the aid of dismembered Barbie doll heads that she often wears on her fingertips. With names such as Satin Lips and Glitter Girl, the doll heads not only engage in long conversations with Jeliza-Rose, reflecting different aspects of the girl's psyche, but also act as her companions while she explores the barren Texas landscape.

Before arriving in Texas, Jeliza-Rose's mother (Jennifer Tilly) dies from a drug overdose. Thereafter, her junkie, washed-out rocker musician father Noah (Jeff Bridges) flees with Jeliza-Rose to a remote Texas farmhouse where he soon follows his deceased wife by overdosing. For much of the rest of the film, Noah's corpse remains seated upright in a living room chair with sunglasses covering his eyes. As her father slowly begins to rot, Jeliza-Rose doesn't readily acknowledge his death because she has grown accustomed to him being unconscious for long periods at a time. Instead, she retreats deeper and deeper into her own mind, exploring the tall grass around the farmhouse, relying on her doll heads for friendship as an unconscious way of keeping herself from feeling too lonely and afraid.

During Jeliza-Rose's wanderings, she eventually encounters and befriends her neighbors, a mentally challenged young man called Dickens (Brendan Fletcher) and Dicken's older sister Dell (Janet McTeer) who is blind in one eye from a bee sting. At this point the story begins to unfold, revealing a past connection between Dell and Jeliza-Rose's deceased father. The eccentric neighbors take the girl under their wing, going so far as to preserve Noah's body via the taxidermy process (something both Dell and Dickens have done to their own dead mother). Events take on an even darker tone when Dickens's amorous feelings for the much younger Jeliza-Rose start to creep into their child-like relationship, and it is revealed that the deeply troubled Dickens, a boy-man who once drove a school bus in front of an oncoming train, keeps a stash of dynamite in his bedroom that he intends to use against the Monster Shark he believes is roaming the countryside. The Monster Shark being, in reality, the nightly passenger train that travels past the farmhouse where Jeliza-Rose and her dead father reside.

What follows is literally an explosive conclusion to the film, one which not only frees Jeliza-Rose from her painful isolation but jolts her from the coping-mechanisms of her own imagination, pulling her back into the less fanciful yet equally disturbing real world. Among the wreckage of the passenger train that has crashed near the farmhouse, Jeliza-Rose is rescued by a surviving passenger who assumes the little girl was also a victim of the train wreck.

[edit] Critical and public reaction

Reviews, at least in the United States, have been horrendous/excellent. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 25% rating calling it "disturbing and unwatchable". Entertainment Weekly critic Owen Gleiberman called it "gruesomely awful". Many other critics shared his sentiments and added that this is the film that will end Terry Gilliam's career. Received "Two Thumbs Way Down" by Richard Roeper and guest critic A.O. Scott on Ebert & Roeper. Scott said that toward the end, the film was "creepy, exploitive, and self-indulgent" and Roeper said "I hated this film" and "I came very close to walking out of the screening room".

However, not all critics have hated it, some online critics found the film to be fantastic and Chicago Tribune critic Michael Wilmington liked the film quite a bit, director Terry Gilliam in an interview said that the film has always garnered mixed reactions, some people love it, hate it, or think it's OK. David Cronenberg, the movie auteur, labeled the movie as being a "poetic horror film". IMDb users have mostly defended the film which has a surprisingly high 7.0 rating considering its somewhat mixed reviews.

The film opened with only $7,252 from one theater. The film didn't expand as much as originally promished, only about 6 more theatres showed the film. Many indy cinemas are showcasing it is a special event, including IFC Center, an indy cinematheque of art movies and avant-garde productions.

This is Gilliam's 2nd film to receive abysmal reviews. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, highly praised by film scholars and cinephiles, holds a 39% at the Rotten Tomatoes movie review site.