1 of 5

Write now Article Tools

Terry Gilliam's Tideland (2005) wishes it was Alice in Wonderland but instead winds up a disjointed frenzy of harrowing images. Devoid of any whimsy or innocence, the movie contains an excessive amount of disturbing material. Some aspects deserve recognition for sheer originality, but these gems lie buried under a heap of perversion and clutter. Staggering junkies, necrophiliac taxidermists, mentally challenged pedophiles, putrefying corpses, talking squirrels and severed doll heads overwhelm the remarkably vacant landscape. Individually, all the elements of Tideland worksome brilliantlybut they combine to form an incoherent mess.

Tideland's heroine, Jeliza-Rose (Jodelle Ferland), lives a bizarrely dysfunctional life. Only ten years old, she spends her days caring for her junkie parents. In the opening scenes, she meticulously prepares a dose of heroin for her father (Jeff Bridges), reads him a bedtime story, and kisses him goodnight. Like a toddler, he later shakes her awake to shows her pictures of preserved corpses he found in a book. When compared to her infantile parents, Jeliza-Rose looks remarkably capablehowever, the extent of her psychological damage soon becomes clear. Unfazed by her mother's death, she fails to notice when her oft-comatose father dies of a heroin overdose. Left all alone in a decrepit abandoned house, she speaks to her only companythe severed heads of Barbie dolls. The rest of the movie blends Jeliza-Rose's grim fantasy world and reality, and makes it difficult to distinguish between them.

The creepy cartoonish world of Tideland in some ways evokes the work of Tim Burton, particularly the eccentric characters and stylized landscape. Jeliza-Rose spends most of the movie in an abandoned house that sits ominously in a vacant lot, much like the Deetz's house in Burton's Beetlejuice. Despite filthy, graffiti-marred walls, it resembles an oversized dollhouse, perfect for make-believe. Like Burton, Gilliam focuses on lonely eccentrics who live in this dark wonderland, and uses imagination as a tool for storytelling.

Unlike Burton, however, Gilliam does not strike a palatable balance between the gruesome and endearing, and overall Tideland lacks the delicate charm of Edward Scissorhands and even the gross-out humor of Beetlejuice. Though innocent and dreamlike at times, Tideland's overuse of sordid and demented themes sticks with the viewer more than anything else. The moments in which Gilliam captures beauty and wonderand he doesvanish from

• 1
• 2
• next page >>

Add your voice

Know something about Movie reviews: Tideland?
We want to hear your view. Write now!