Topic: Tidelands
Moondark's photo
Thu 10/01/09 04:47 PM
This is a disturbing movie. It is NOT a bad movie. But you can't really use an adjective like 'good' and feel comfortable with it.

A girl of about 11 movies into her late grandmother's old farmhouse with her father after her mom OD's on smack and her dad totally flips out. The description on the disc sleeve says that the dad then spends his days in a stupor mourning the death of his wife.
That is not what happens. The first thing he wants to do is shoot up and he dies as well.

The movie takes place over the course of about a week in which the girl lives off a jar of peanut butter and believes her father is 'asleep' and that he will come back from his 'vacation' any time now while playing and exploring with her vivid imagination and meeting the loony neighbors on the farm next door.

The woman is a taxidermist who once dated the girl's father see where this is going?) and totally off her rocker while her brother is mentally challenged and looks like he might have had a head wound or brain surgery. He also has a vivid imagination and acts a rather lot like an 11 year old. The movie starts off with a disclaimer to view the movie with the innocence of childhood and discard your adult views. (see where this is going?)

At the end, you are happy that the brother uses his dynamite to blow up the "monster shark". Because it is near both farm houses, the girl goes to find out what happened and is taken in with the passengers and therefore removed from the situation she was in. In only a week or so, you could see that if she ended up living alone in that farm house with the crazy people near by to 'help her out' she was going to end up as crazy as them.

The acting was fantastic. The movie was well done. It is the content that makes it uncomfortable. One of the few films I would call outstanding while not being able to call it good.