Tideland (review)

Rating 4/5 Check it out
some spoilers

"Children are resilient"

This movie is real, unflinchingly real, and that is it's great strength but it also makes it very uncomfortable to watch. I can understand people not enjoying it. To be honest, I didn't enjoy it. I don't think it's meant to be enjoyed. I think it's meant to show us that even in the midst of grim realities children will find hope, joy, and friendship because they need those things as much as food, water, and sleep. As the director (Terry Gilliam) says in his opening comments (found here on YouTube) before the film; "many of you aren't going to know what to think when this film finishes, but hopefully you'll be thinking"

Tideland is a surreal sort of fairytale told through the eyes of a child. Jeliza-Rose (Jodelle Ferland) is a young girl who is so innocent to the messed up world around her that she thinks nothing of it. After her junkie mother (Jennifer Tilly) dies, she and her drug addicted father (Jeff Bridges), go on a trip. They end up at his childhood home which looks like it's been long abandoned and is in the middle of a field somewhere in the Midwest. Shortly after they arrive her father overdoses leaving her all alone with the strangers (who truly are strange) in the next house over, some animals, and her doll heads. She creates a fantasy world that incorporates the tragedy in the real world around her and the childhood wonder she has inside her.

Ultimately this is a story about a girl who has every reason to think the world is dark and hopeless but just never sees it that way. It's really not intended to be taken as dark and disturbing. As Gilliam talks about in the opening. This movie is meant to be seen from a child's eyes. The problem is we put our prejudices and fears as adults into this kid's life. She thinks nothing of preparing heroin for her father, or being around dead things. These things are part of the world she knows, and she accepts them better than the adults around her do. We just have trouble watching that and see it as perverse, grotesque, or insensitive. This is where the movie makes us uncomfortable. It clashes with everything we have been taught to think as adults.

The visuals of this movie are a great contrast of harsh reality and surreal dream. Gilliam (known for The Fisher King, 12 Monkeys, and Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas) has once again created a world all it's own that takes place in our world but is not the same. Jodelle Ferland makes this world believable and engrossing by being so wonderfully invested in her character and the fictitious world that character creates.

We all create fantasies to deal with death or pain or rejection. This movie is just bold enough to make us think about that and make us wonder if children don't have the right idea by living in innocent joy at the world around them.

Side note: I feel it's important to reiterate that this movie is filled with disturbing images (drug use, decaying corpses, severe mental handicap, [spoiler]taxidermy of people, disturbing sexuality[/spoiler], and gruesome situations). All of it involves a child or happens in the child's presence. If you are easily bothered by things of this nature then you may want to skip this one. It is not done for shock value or in a gratuitous manner but it is still tough for some people to watch.


Tideland at IMDB
120 minutes
Rated R for bizarre and disturbing content, including drug use, sexuality, and gruesome situations - all involving a child, and for some language.
(watched on a DVD in my apartment)

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