All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Average User Score: 6 (12 sources)

Submit Movie Review

Review this film

Tell the world what you think of Tideland

Your Score:

reset score

Write Your Review:
When writing your review, remember to keep the language clean.

Submit Review Cancel

tubalcane420

-1

Agree (0)

Disagree (0)

A little girl helping her father prepare a syringe of heroin is dark. It takes quite a mind and set of balls to go darker and more bizarre. Knowing when exactly to let up is impressive. Making it constantly entertaining and watchable is what...
[+] Read Full Review

A little girl helping her father prepare a syringe of heroin is dark. It takes quite a mind and set of balls to go darker and more bizarre. Knowing when exactly to let up is impressive. Making it constantly entertaining and watchable is what really matters.

This isn't just some experiment in being demented and unpleasant. And it's not a gimmicky exercise in putting a cute face in a horrific situation. It is a multifaceted film executed expertly that is rewarding to watch and to rewatch.

The otherworldliness of the characters, and their being separated from almost any normal people seems to me to be an important part of my enjoyment of this movie. Without a truly sane parent or even outside to protect Jeliza Rose, the movie is slightly unsettling even when the particular scene you are watching is pleasant or optimistic. The lack of such a person also makes the movie less realistic, which dulls any possible sting of the movie's darkest and most bizarre sections.

I also want to stress that there is an underlying warmth to the movie, and that none of the characters are monsters, but all of them could definitely use some help from healthy and caring people.

[-] Minimize Review

Report Abuse

Posted apr 2, 2008 9:18 am pt

afq2846

-1

Agree (0)

Disagree (0)

When I first saw this movie it started with Gilliam saying you might not like this movie. It was all down hill from there. He is being honest and telling people that you probably not like this movie because its done in a way that only a few people...
[+] Read Full Review

When I first saw this movie it started with Gilliam saying you might not like this movie. It was all down hill from there. He is being honest and telling people that you probably not like this movie because its done in a way that only a few people could actually like this movie. It tells the story of a young woman and her life. Her parents are drug abusers and they end up moving into a country run down house. She is left to her ideas to keep herself occupied while her father gets high. This movie is trying to pass itself off as a fantasy movie but I really think its poorly done. This is not a very well done movie with acting being nothing special. Normally Gilliam's movies have great or different special effects. This movie does not have it at all. Its a poorly done movie to be honest. I think it shows the young lady in a poor light. I think it started as a good idea but ultimately in the end it does not pan out. This is a pretty poor movie that is not really worth watching.

[-] Minimize Review

Report Abuse

Posted jul 20, 2007 11:42 pm pt

konichiwa21

-1

Agree (1)

Disagree (1)

+ great ending
+ the empty bodies look cool/scary as heck

- overall depressing theme
- for most part crappy visuals

Report Abuse

Posted apr 29, 2007 11:03 am pt

Lando81

-1

Agree (0)

Disagree (0)

This Movie is Terrible. I wish i could take that Half Star away and give it a score of 0 out of 5. This movie beats out Norbit for the worst movie of all time.

Report Abuse

Posted apr 2, 2007 1:21 am pt

• [+] Chicago Tribune
  
  75
  It's crazy, dangerous and sometimes gorgeous: a feast of nuttiness that takes you, for a while, over the edge.

  by Michael Wilmington | Read Full Review »
• [+] LA Weekly
  
  70
  This Southern Gothic Alice in Wonderland is not for the faint-hearted, to be sure, yet amid the swaying chaff there are moments of piercing grace and beauty when we'e reminded of the lost, lonely child at the heart of this tale. If nothing else, it's liberating to see one of cinema's unrepentant fantasists going out on a limb like this and cutting loose.

  by Tom Charity | Read Full Review »
• [+] TV Guide
  
  63
  By turns fascinating and intolerable.

  by Ken Fox | Read Full Review »
• [+] The Onion (A.V. Club)
  
  58
  It's no "trip through the dark to appreciate the light." It's a nightmare from start to finish.

  by Noel Murray | Read Full Review »
• [+] Los Angeles Times
  
  50
  Tideland is equally evocative of the pastoral mystery of an Andrew Wyeth painting and the looming menace of "Psycho." The disparity is fitting, because as Tideland unfolds, it's difficult to tell if you're watching a fantasy or a horror movie, or one superimposed on the other.

  by Sam Adams | Read Full Review »
• [+] The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  
  50
  Tideland is the easiest of Gilliam's films to follow, yet the most disturbing to watch.

  by Jennie Punter | Read Full Review »
• [+] Village Voice
  
  40
  Gilliam has suffered more than his share of butchered projects, but with this exercise in kamikaze auteurism, he appears to have made exactly the mess he wanted.

  by J. Hoberman | Read Full Review »
• [+] ReelViews
  
  38
  Tideland is, by turns, a complete bore and a creepy experience. And I don't mean "creepy" in a positive sense.

  by James Berardinelli | Read Full Review »
• [+] New York Daily News
  
  38
  A murky swamp of a movie, Terry Gilliam's defiantly surreal Tideland finds every good idea drowning in an excess of indulgence.

  by Elizabeth Weitzman | Read Full Review »
• [+] Philadelphia Inquirer
  
  38
  A mix of "Alice in Wonderland" and William S. Burroughs, "Psycho" and the psychotic. It's pretty much a squirmy experience all around.

  by Steven Rea | Read Full Review »
• [+] The Hollywood Reporter
  
  30
  A misconceived washout of a darkly gothic story of madness, addiction and child abuse made all the more unpleasant by Gilliam's trademark intense visual style.

  by Michael Rechtshaffen | Read Full Review »
• [+] Variety
  
  30
  Dragged down by a sputtering script and torpid pacing. Way too disturbing for kids and too weird for most grown-ups.

  by Leslie Felperin | Read Full Review »
• [+] Christian Science Monitor
  
  25
  Borderline unwatchable, although, as is true of all Gilliam movies, it certainly is different.

  by Peter Rainer | Read Full Review »
• [+] Boston Globe
  
  25
  The results are dull, of all things. The movie itself feels like an overstuffed burrito,

  by Ty Burr | Read Full Review »
• [+] Seattle Post-Intelligencer
  
  25
  When the little girl tells her decapititated doll, "It's not just a bad dream," she is right. It's just a bad movie.

  by Bill White | Read Full Review »