Tideland 2005

Jeff Shannon, Seattle Times: Honest, unflinching and worthy of reappraisal. Read more

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: It's crazy, dangerous and sometimes gorgeous: a feast of nuttiness that takes you, for a while, over the edge. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: I came very close to walking out of the screening room. And I never do that. Read more

Noel Murray, AV Club: The movie is brave, strong, deeply felt, and frequently brilliant, and it does exactly what it sets out to do. But what it sets out to do is distressingly unpleasant. Read more

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. Read more

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. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Despite a few psychologically insightful touches about how children learn to survive misery, Tideland is borderline unwatchable, although, as is true of all Gilliam movies, it certainly is different. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: The movie dies early on, but it keeps hanging around, looking a little more rotten with each new scene. Read more

Tom Charity, L.A. Weekly: Not for the faint-hearted, to be sure, yet amid the swaying chaff there are moments of piercing grace and beauty when we're reminded of the lost, lonely child at the heart of this tale. Read more

Jan Stuart, Newsday: Gilliam drains any remaining signs of life and humanity from his adult characters, underscoring their grotesqueness with expressionistic camera work and shock-tactic effects. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Ugly and misjudged. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: A murky swamp of a movie. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: What we get, sadly, is easily the worst production Gilliam has ever been involved in, either behind the camera or in front of it. Tideland is, by turns, a complete bore and a creepy experience. And I don't mean 'creepy' in a positive sense. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: The film has nary a gram of human reality or compassion anywhere in it. Read more

Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle: Pointless and an excruciating bore. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: The literal train wreck that caps the film is an apt metaphor for this hallucinatory fiasco. Read more

Jennie Punter, Globe and Mail: The film drags in the middle and feels excruciatingly slow and repetitive in the final stretch. Read more

Susan Walker, Toronto Star: A triumph of costuming and production design over plot, theme and main characters. Read more

Jessica Winter, Time Out: Gilliam's brash disregard for conventional narrative rhythms and structures is one of the many thrills of his best work, but here his freewheeling navigations veer so far off-road that the passenger is left exhausted and bewildered. Read more

Leslie Felperin, Variety: Tideland sees the fanciful helmer overindulging his dark side with a slice of Gothic nastiness. Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: 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. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Becomes an excruciating exercise in gothic excess and progressively more disgusting imagery. Read more