Tideland Review

Tideland movie was uncomfortable to watch. In my previous review of Brother’s Grimm, I pointed out how this seemed to mark a downward spiral in Terry Gilliam’s directing, Tideland just confirmed this to me. It seemed that Terry Gilliam was really trying to make another Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, a movie that made a statement on drugs, however, Tideland can’t make a statement. It can barely even bring itself to have a reasonable story, and much less, any characters you care about. Tideland seemed like a two hour long anti-drug campaign about its effect on children. Which is unfortunate, at first, I really liked how Terry Gilliam incorporated ideas of Alice in Wonderland as the basis for the plot. I think that a modern Alice in Wonderland retelling based on an abusive family could make for a great film, and Gilliam could do a great job with it. However, as it differentiated itself from Lewis Carol’s classic, the true holes in the story really stood out. As a start, the characters were all unlikable. There wasn’t a single character that I related to or even cared about their well being. The main character, I’ll just call her little girl for simplicity, is incredibly annoying. Getting a 12 year old to put on a couple of accents and run around a field for two hours isn’t entertaining. This might have worked if it was a kids movie, but, this is definitely not. There are plenty of heavy references to drugs, abuse, homelessness, and even unnecessary details about the little girl’s grandma getting too intimate with a little boy, who then grows up and marries the 12 year old main character. This is all just unnecessary. I agree, children living in an abusive family don’t have it easy, you just shouldn’t shove it down the audience’s throat like this. Gilliam acts like the audience has no clue as to what the “deeper meaning” of this is, so he just makes it so blatantly obvious that it’s hard to watch. Even Gilliam’s classic visual style is missing. In conclusion, the idea was there for a good movie, but (and I mean this in every regard) Tideland is nothing but a good movie. 4.7/10