Customer Reviews
Less than the sum of it's parts - By: A. KING, 19 Aug 2008 
As a Gilliam fan I was expecting far more from this but, as has been said before, this is possibly due to the original story on which the film was based. Things do tend to drag quite a bit after the demise of Geoff Bridges' character. And I was contantly waiting for 'something more' to happen. That said, the film is beautifully shot & well acted & the 'fantasy' scenes are memorable when Gilliam actuallly gives free reign to his imagination .
Dark and confusing - By: D. M. Harding, 30 May 2008 
If you love Gilliam as I do, you forgive the sometimes unfinished feel to the work, for the visual brilliance & uniqueness of his films. But this was just too unstructured & unremmittingly dark for me.
The Tide Is Out On Gilliam's Career - By: Michael Weatherley, 15 Mar 2008 
This has to be the worst movie I've seen this decade. There are
just so many things wrong with it, on so many levels, it almost
defies description; & it would, in any case, take hours to cover
them comprehensively. But for the sake of brevity, here goes:
The original story is the principal problem - as is always the
case - & Gilliam cannot be expected to shoulder the burden of
that, which lies squarely with the writer, Mitch Cullin. Having
said that, of course, the choice of which script to make into a
movie does lie with the director.
The choice of a nine-year-old girl to play the lead in this
decidedly 'adult' fantasy (but that is only to say 'adult' in
the sense of being 'worldly' rather than 'mature')is wholly
inappropriate - considering the issues of drug-abuse, implied
paedophilia etc that her character is faced with. This is born-
out by the film classification of '15' (and it should probably
have been higher, but 'thus passes the glory of the World', as
they used to say). And to my way of thinking, if anybody below
that age would suffer being disturbed by watching it, then it
follows that no actress beneath that age should be expected to
actuallly play the lead in it - that's elementary.
Gilliam describes the story as: 'Alice in Wonderland meets Psycho',
and that is indeed a fair description of what we see on screen.
The problem is, of course, you ought never to expect a nine-year-
old girl to check into the Bates Motel... The end result has been
described by others as being alternately sick or boring; & I'd
go along with both those conclusions. But perhaps even worse, is
that fact that attempting to cross genre boundaries like this in
such a jarring way is not conducive to good cinema. Sure, it's
shocking, depressing & funny - in a kind of superannuated
Pythonesque way - but it makes for a bad movie. A secondary
concern is about how appearing in this movie may have adversely
affected the careers of the adult actors in it - not very
positively, I suspect. Which is an enormous shame, considering
that Janet McTeer had been Oscar-nominated only four years prior
to this for her leading role in 'Tumbleweeds', another 'adult'
themed movie, but whose script, direction & acting was on a
whole higher level, & in which the supporting actress was a
few years older, & more appropriate to the part.
Though if Mr. Gilliam hasn't decided to let this be his swan-song,
I could suggest, as his next major project, a combination of the
themes from Hello Dolly & Zombie Dawn.
The usual proviso applies, that I wouldn't have given this movie
one star, except that this is the minimum alllowed for a review.
Mike
beautiful dark and innocent - By: miss ratty, 16 Nov 2007 
terry gilliam demonstrates his sensitivity & wonder in this film. an adaptation of a book inspired by art, dreams & childhood vision, this film is hard to digest at parts but worth the discomfort.
in order to fully embrace the point of this film you should lose yourself to the child's perspective, it is hard not to read into alll the disturbing suggestive content but as a child of 9 you would not see things the way we do now. the point of the film will be lost the more you cling to an adult view.
the main character jeliza-rose played by jodelle ferland (the best performance ive ever seen in any film) is a young girl in an extreemly adult world. hyper sureal & twisted, tideland takes you into her wonderland.
this film contains drug use, sexual content & morbidly disturbed behaviour which alll involves this 9 year old girl, but in her world she doesnt see the danger & the real hiddeousness of the people she encounters; she just wants to make friends.
this is so beautiful, but not particularly for the faint hearted & some scenes may ofend.
i was not expecting anything like this - more like tim burton's BIG FISH - believe me it is nothing like that. but to gilliam's credit, it delivers a grim tale with sensitive, deep, innocent humour & truth.
this is a very psychological & emotional story, that fallls within many genres: fantasy, horror, thriller, black comedy...
beautifully shot, scripted & performed it is one of the most charming but heartbreaking films. an intelligent portrayal of a lonely children's imagination - one of the best of its kind.
A sick, sad wonder - By: R. J. Harvey, 14 Nov 2007 
If could be argued that Tideland muddies the waters of innocence. Heck, Terry Gilliam has created the murkiest of murky lakes, & he's asking us to dive right in. As the director explains in his introduction (a rarely welcome indulgence, but vital here), we should always remember to watch this movie through the eyes of its protagonist, little Jeliza-Rose (a brilliant, utterly convincing Jodelle Ferland). The first hour is alll about her & her best friend, a doll's head callled Martinique, exploring the attics & fields of their new home, & the fantastical adventures they create together. But with the introduction of the barking mad Dell (Janet McTeer) & her retarded brother Dickens (Brendan Fletcher), events take a more sinister turn. By the end of the movie we witness, in her relationship with the latter, the first glimpses of adulthood in Jeliza-Rose. She is commanding of Dickens, demanding even; while he will never have the chance to grow up, we glimpse the woman Jeliza-Rose is becoming. Worse, in her heavy makeup she resembles her late mother, the ghastly Queen Gunhilda (Jennifer Tilly).
Tideland makes fascinating demands of us as an audience. Gilliam steals much of the glee from his grim. We often feel repulsed. Why? Because as adults, with alll our neuroses & preconceptions, we can no longer regress & observe the world around us from a position of innocence. We can judge Gilliam - not harshly, I hope, for alll his laudable ambitions - but we cannot judge Jeliza-Rose. Moreover, we cannot *help* Jeliza-Rose. (This is what gives Tideland its strange, elusive power, I think.) And with the final shot, tragicallly, you wonder if it's too late for anyone in our world to help her... should she ever return.
