Tideland poster & wallpaper
Get movie widget Recommend it Add to Favorites

Jodelle Ferland, Janet McTeer, Brendan Fletcher, Jeff Bridges, Jennifer Tilly ... see more see more... , Dylan Taylor , Wendy Anderson , Kent Wolkowski , Alan Adair , Sally Crooks

Following the death of her drug-addicted mother, a whimsical young girl follows her chemically dependent father to a remote prairie house to discover a wondrous world of magical fireflies and nocturna... read more read more...l bog men in this hallucinatory childhood fantasy from visionary filmmaker Terry Gilliam. Noah (Jeff Bridges) is a burnt-out rock star whose post-superstar voyage to obscurity is hastened by a serious drug addiction that is also shared with his wild-eyed wife (Jennifer Tilly). When the Noah's increasingly erratic wife suffers a fatal overdose, the faded rock star opts to escape the painful reality by retreating to a ramshackle remote home with his young daughter, Jeliza-Rose (Jodelle Ferland). Left to her own devices as her father stumbles about the grasslands in a drug-induced haze, Jeliza-Rose soon ventures into her own fantasy land before making the acquaintance of mentally challenged youth Dickens (Brendan Fletcher). As the two become fast friends and Jeliza-Rose joins the swimsuit-clad Dickens in defeating the menacing shark that traverses the nearby railways, the pair are watched over by Dickens' black-clad sister, Dell (Janet McTeer), who acts as Dickens' guardian and whose overly enthusiastic interest in the art of taxidermy borders on obsessive. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Flixster Users

61% liked it

43,971 ratings

Critics

29% liked it

73 critics

R, 2 hr. 2 min.

Directed by: Terry Gilliam

Release Date: October 13, 2006

Invite friends to see

DVD Release Date: February 27, 2007

Stats: 3,256 reviews

report incorrect info

Photos

Tideland Movie Poster Tideland Tideland Tideland Tideland Tideland Tideland Tideland Tideland Tideland wallpaper Tideland Tideland Tideland Tideland Tideland Tideland Jodelle Ferland as Jeliza Rose Tideland
Upload a Photo | View All Tideland Photos

Your Rating


clear rating

Flixster Reviews (3,256)

  • ythelastman89
    July 1, 2010
    ythelastman89
    Such an odd and when deeply looked into, a very demented children's story. I don't think there's every going to be a movie again that uses a corpse like it was in this. Terry Gilliam's love for Alice in Wonderland type scenarios really comes through in this, probably the easiest ... read moreto pick up on. It also reminded me of something by Steinbeck or Twain, mainly the setting and characters. Overall, if you're a fan of Terry Gilliam you'll probably love it. If not, you'll probably just watch it in awe of such madness.
  • mumby1988
    June 28, 2010
    mumby1988
    Sometimes it is fun to criticise films: one gets a certain snobbish thrill from kicking seven bells out of the latest Hollywood dreck. But with Tideland, probably Terry Gilliamâ??s least-seen film, such feelings do not come to the fore. This is the kind of film you want to embrac... read moree and adore, and you cannot help but admire its director. But it is still found wanting in so many ways; all attempts to justify its strengths ultimately come up short, and its failings are so prominent that they cannot be ignored.

    With Tideland and The Brothers Grimm, we have the chalk and cheese of Gilliamâ??s career, in terms of what they represent and the reactions they produce. The Brothers Grimm is the product of endless in-fighting and uneasy compromise; it is the clash of a gifted auteur with heavy-handed producers, resulting in a ham-fasted, third-rate, pedestrian fantasy which barely hangs together. Tideland, meanwhile, is the product of an unlimited imagination, with no test screenings or product deals to worry about. Hence it is confusing, rambling, and at times very tedious, but you are at least satisfied by the presence of rough, artistic edges. Watching The Brothers Grimm produces anger; watching Tideland produces a different feeling, one of admiring disappointment.

    Tideland shares a number of features with Panâ??s Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toroâ??s masterpiece of fantasy horror. Both are essentially dark fairy tales with young female protagonists. Both start in positions of extreme darkness (the Spanish Civil War and a family of smack-heads) and then get steadily darker. And both are visually stunning, combining grim realism with stunning special effects and dreamy surrealism to create something truly unique. But Panâ??s Labyrinth is by far the superior film, for two clear reasons.

    The first reason surrounds the relationship between the audience and the central character. Both Ofeliaâ??s quest for her former self and Jeliza-Roseâ??s bid for survival require us to completely relate to the central character before we start to accept the existence of fairies or demons, or â??monster sharksâ??. In Panâ??s Labyrinth, we identify with Ofelia because there is so little background to either the fauns she meets or the soldiers with whom she lives. She is the only reliable witness we have, so we quickly accept her view and thereby begin to believe that what we are seeing is real.

    Gilliam, on the other hand, seems unsure as to how much we should care about Jeliza-Rose, played superbly by Jodelle Ferland. By having both parents OD in the first half hour, we have little choice over whom we focus on, but the circumstances in which we find her are so repulsive and uncomfortable that we struggle to stay the course. The problem is not, as some have suggested, that films involving children should not be this dark. The problem is that Gilliam does not know how to marshal this darkness so that the true emotions of the character come across. Much of the film feels like Jeliza-Rose just play-acting, as if there is no threat or danger; when the real dangers arrive it is like being awoken from an increasingly irritating dream with no real beginning or end.

    The second reason for Panâ??s superiority lies in its thematic clarity. Although it is incredibly multi-layered, Panâ??s Labyrinth is very clearly a film about innocence, identity and memory. Del Toro doesnâ??t shove these themes down the audienceâ??s throats, but every single movement and development is so bound up with such ideas that once you are immersed in the story, it doesnâ??t take long to pick up on them.

    Tideland, on the other hand, isnâ??t sure exactly what its themes are beyond the resilience of children. As a thesis about innocence struggling through darkness, it does partially succeed: the final scene with the train wreck is quite breathtaking, with Jelizaâ??s fantasy being finally ruptured with the arrival of more people. Her tears in this scene at leaving her childhood fantasy behind are beautifully handled, and this scene as a whole almost redeems the entire film.

    Outside of this, however, the film is incoherent and extremely rambling. It seems so content to play out as a series of childlike fantasies between Jeliza-Rose and Dickens that it forgets to have anything else resembling a plot. After the departure of Jeff Bridges the film drags terribly, with many sections feeling repetitive and the dialogue becoming increasingly tiresome. There are some genuinely shocking moments, such as Jeff Bridges being embalmed or the Frankenstein-like dream sequence where one of the dollâ??s heads is fastened on the body of Jeliza-Roseâ??s dead mother, played by Jennifer Tilly. But none of these sequences feel like continuations of any kind of plot; like aspects of Alice in Wonderland, on which Tideland is based, they come out of nowhere with seemingly little purpose other than to turn oneâ??s stomach.

    The comparison with Alice (of which Gilliam is a huge fan) helps to illuminate Tidelandâ??s problems with regard to characters. The characters in Alice are notably insane and off-the-wall, but with a couple of exceptions they are never tiresome or annoying. Whether in Lewis Carrollâ??s original novel or the numerous adaptations, they remain compelling and involving because their dialogue and personalities are well-constructed. They are never patronising or condescending towards Alice or by extension the reader, and their whimsy belies a twisted sense of darkness which makes Aliceâ??s journey more compelling.

    In contrast, most of the characters in Tideland struggle to remain compelling beyond their initial quirks. They are so exaggerated, so quirky and thereby so annoying, that it takes a huge amount of patience to put up with them, let alone unravel them. Gilliam is increasingly a director who is content to let actors play freely and go as far over-the-top as they like; an approach which frequently backfires, as seen from Heath Ledgerâ??s work in both The Brothers Grimm and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

    To this end, we understand Dickensâ?? mental instability very early on, but there is far too little character development beyond a fleeting â??romanceâ?? (perhaps the wrong word) with Jeliza-Rose. Dell is scary in parts, like when she reveals her bad eye and talks about the bees, but her pious screaming at the dinner table tips over into clichéd nonsense. Finally, too little effort is made over different aspects of Jeliza-Roseâ??s personality being represented by the dollâ??s heads. We get used to them talking without her lips moving, but when she begins to abandon them we are given little inclination as to what such gestures represent.

    Tideland is, for better or worse, unlike any other film you have ever seen. Taken purely as an artistic exercise, it is a big improvement on The Brothers Grimm, because it is so uncompromising and so full-on. And you do have to admire Terry Gilliam for wanting to push the boundaries of what is both possible and acceptable with regard to children on screen. But in the end it is too long, too annoying and far too badly structured to compete with Brazil or 12 Monkeys. For all his best efforts and intentions, it remains an admirable failure, with moments of heartbreaking brilliance nestled among hours of uninvolving repetition.
  • harrycaul
    January 11, 2010
    harrycaul
    Terry Gilliam hasn't exactly dazzled us with either the quantity or the quality of his work in recent years though this is still easily the best thing he has done since Twelve Monkeys, certainly much better than its 27% critics' rating would suggest. The story centres on J... read moreeliza-Rose (Jodelle Ferland, remarkably assured), a damaged little girl who escapes into her imagination to pass the time that her junkie parents (Jeff Bridges and Jennifer Tilley) spend 'on vacation', the euphemism by which they refer to their interminable, drug-induced stupors. After Jeliza-Rose's mother fatally overdoses, she and her father flee to rural Texas and that staple refuge of the fairy tale, Grandmother's house... I must admit, I wasn't sure what to make of this for the first half hour; it wasn't until Bridges embarked on his final vacation, leaving Jeliza-Rose and her doll's-head friends to explore the house, that the movie really started working for me. Though the overall tone is dark and unsettling, there are some leavening moments of black comedy along the way, and the lonely girl's attempts to befriend her eccentric neighbours are sweet and touching. Monty Python fans will enjoy an animation set inside Jeff Bridges chest cavity (don't ask!) that recalls Gilliam's early work on the Flying Circus.
  • purplemegan
    April 5, 2009
    purplemegan
    I just don't know what to say about this movie. It was visually stunning and I love the camera angles (it was through the eyes of a child). The little actress was outstanding! But it was still creepy and disturbing and weird as well. You have to like this sort of weirdo, fantasy,... read more pseudo-horror type of film. And not be weirded out by a young child in effed up situations, or at least be able to put aside your morals for 2 hours.
  • 366weirdmovies
    March 31, 2009
    366weirdmovies
    A girl left alone in an old country house retreats into a fantasy world after being left to her own devices by her junkie father, all the while not recognizing the dangers posed by her mentally challenged adult playmate and his bizarre, vindictive sister. A sinister, shocking an... read mored fantastic movie about childhood's oblivion towards the dangers of the adult world that flirts with greatness but never quite reaches it.
  • bookmunki
    October 24, 2008
    bookmunki
    you must heed gilliam's advice to watch this film through a child's eyes, otherwise it's not really viewable and offensive. there is beauty in this skewed vision and disturbing world. this work definitely shows the resilience of a child's persective through fantasy.
  • pier007
    May 19, 2008
    pier007
    Alice in wonderland on acid. An interesting but ineffective example of Gilliam's poetic, magical, sad and disturbing universe. The young little Jodelle Ferland is quite precocious and convincing in her role.
  • Stinger839
    February 3, 2008
    Stinger839
    A new jewel for the Gilliam crown
  • drago25
    December 31, 2007
    drago25
    This a tough film to rate and review. I know that I liked it overall, that is was a damned interesting experience, it's just tough to say whether it's a really good film or not - certainly not up to the level of Gilliam at his best as with The Fisher King or Brazil. The film star... read mores a wonderful young actor, Jodelle Ferland, as Jeliza-Rose - a young girl who escapes with her soon deceased father (Jeff Bridges) to her grandmothers; farm after the mother's drug overdose. One thing Gilliam never fails to do is push the boundaries of filmmaking, often testing the morals of the audience. Although, before I saw Tideland, the buzz around made me expect much worse than what is actually in the film. The supposed sexuality involving the young girl is nothing more than a socially challenging relationship between her and an older, mentally challenged boy (which doesn't involve get to the point of any real sexuality, and is almost innocent). Perhaps the most disturbing thing is the preparation of drugs for her parents in the film. That's the thing, Gilliam may have challenged audiences a little too much with Tideland, hence its not being greatly received. But although this surely isn't one of Gilliam greatest achievements, I don't think it deserves the almost universal panning it got. If nothing else, it's a highly imaginative, well made film that takes the "down the rabbit hole" concept to new, very weird, heights. The cast of characters is as off-the-wall as you would expect, and the small cast assembled here is excellent. The visuals in the film are also strikingly beautiful at times, and the set design meticulous, highly detailed. Tideland is a challenging film that looks great and is worth watching if just to see what kind of weird antics Gilliam is up to. At least it's no Brothers Grimm, and perhaps it will grow on me more with repeat viewings.
  • LitelBluHli
    December 2, 2007
    LitelBluHli
    Interesting...weird...that's all I can say.

View All Tideland Reviews

Critic Reviews

Colin Covert
November 2, 2006
Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune

The literal train wreck that caps the film is an apt metaphor for this hallucinatory fiasco. Full Review

Ruthe Stein
October 27, 2006
Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle

Pointless and an excruciating bore. Full Review

Ty Burr
October 27, 2006
Ty Burr, Boston Globe

The movie itself feels like an overstuffed burrito: Nicola Pecorini's cinematography has verve but no visual sense, and the film's self-important pace turns deadening over the long haul. Full Review

Ann Hornaday
October 26, 2006
Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

Becomes an excruciating exercise in gothic excess and progressively more disgusting imagery. Full Review

Susan Walker
October 20, 2006
Susan Walker, Toronto Star

A triumph of costuming and production design over plot, theme and main characters. Full Review

Jennie Punter
October 20, 2006
Jennie Punter, Globe and Mail

The film drags in the middle and feels excruciatingly slow and repetitive in the final stretch. Full Review

Sam Adams
October 19, 2006
Sam Adams, Los Angeles Times

Tideland's unmodulated frenzy has the effect of a prolonged shriek, too high and shrill for individual words to make themselves heard. Full Review

Michael Wilmington
October 19, 2006
Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune

It's crazy, dangerous and sometimes gorgeous: a feast of nuttiness that takes you, for a while, over the edge. Full Review

Richard Roeper
October 17, 2006
Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper

I came very close to walking out of the screening room. And I never do that. Full Review

Andrew O'Hehir
October 13, 2006
Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com

The film has nary a gram of human reality or compassion anywhere in it. Full Review

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)

Cast

More Like This

Click a thumb to vote on that suggestion, or add your own suggestions.

  • Pan's Labyrinth
    Pan's Labyrinth (65%)
  • Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
    Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (67%)
  • Brazil
    Brazil (70%)
  • Bully
    Bully (17%)

More Movies like Tideland

Facts

No facts approved yet. Be the first

Tideland : Watch Free on TV

Tideland Trivia

  • Which movie directed by Terry Gilliam has the character Jeliza-Rose?  Answer »
  • Which Monty python actor directed Tideland, Baron Münchhausen and Fear and loathing in Las Vegas.   Answer »
  • Terry Gilliam discovered his inner child while writing what film?  Answer »
  • In the movie Tideland, what are the names of Jeliza-Rose's doll heads?  Answer »
More Tideland Trivia

Movie Quizzes

No quizzes for Tideland. Want to create one?

Video Clips

Upload a Video |

All Tideland Videos

Meet Other Fans

Add Tideland to favorites

Recent News

No recent headlines. Got one?

Recent Lists

Make a List |

View All Lists

Most Popular Skin

purplefreak3 Skin by purplefreak3
31 Profiles
Add to Profile

More Skins