Feature Review | Tadpole
Written by: Brian Orndorf

Rated: 4/10     

“Tadpole” is a tale about an overachieving 15 year-old boy who falls in love with an older woman, all the while quoting Voltaire and swatting away other older women who deeply desire him. No, it’s not a science fiction picture, but a warmly acted, less than entertaining romp that just might have visions of Wes Anderson’s “Rushmore” ringing through your head.

Oscar Grubman (Aaron Stanford, “Hollywood Ending“) has returned home from boarding school for one reason only: to get close to his stepmother, Eve (Sigourney Weaver), whom Oscar has the hots for. While distracted by his inability to share his feelings, and by his father’s (John Ritter, looking a little bored but nevertheless entertaining) insistence that he should find a girlfriend, Oscar finds his way into the bed of his stepmother’s best friend, Diane (Bebe Neuwirth). Watching his world slowly collapsing in front of his eyes, Oscar resolves to turn his bad luck around and try to find a way to make Eve notice him in a way she didn’t before.

“Tadpole” is a very lightweight film, so much so that it almost floats away from your very eyes. It’s tough to enjoy such a bubbly film, even when the filmmakers fight like mad to make it all mean something with oh-so-precious literary quote interstitials, a New York location, and the picture captured on digital video. Without those elements in play, this film could easily be “Porky’s 4” in a heartbeat. But since “Tadpole” is so relentlessly “witty,” I was slightly won over by its one-dimensional charms, and even more so by its 69 minute running time. This film, like a trashy beach novel, is a quick read, and blessedly so.

Yet, in the mindset of less is more, the filmmakers have shortchanged the characters they profess to love. Oscar’s lustful intentions for Eve are amusing at first, but we never see the origins of the infatuation, nor do we see Eve’s reaction to Oscar’s eventual full-court-press. The film is built around this association, but it’s never clear what kind of relationship they had to begin with. Oscar’s relationship with Diane is also given the quick brush-off by those around the couple, something I find hard to believe even in a cinematic world.

Also of concern is the look of the film. Though filled with familiar actors and Big Apple landmarks, “Tadpole” has all the glorious color scheme of chocolate ice cream soup. I’ve never been a fan of the DV look to films, and I find the reasons to shoot the picture in this needless format elude me. There is no real theatricality to support “Tadpole,” making it come off as a student film, albeit a student film with a Tony/Oscar/Emmy calibrated cast. The DV does nothing to advance the story, nor does it envelop the viewer into this crazy world as DV is usually intended to do. It reeks of simple laziness, especially when some scope lenses and color film could’ve done this picture a world of good.

In the film’s defense, at least one actor comes to play. While Weaver is mostly relegated to smiles and fantasy sequences, Bebe Neuwirth is positively hell on wheels as the 40-something seductress. With a killer glint within her eyes and heartbreak in her hips, Neuwirth is about as perfect as perfect casting gets. Her scenes with Aaron Stanford are what makes “Tadpole” click, but unfortunately, the two aren’t given enough room to play for very long.

Reportedly an audience favorite at this past year’s Sundance film fest, “Tadpole” is far too indifferent to make any kind of impression beyond smiles and speed. See it only if you like the actors, or if the air conditioning breaks.

COMMENTS
Date/Time of Posting:  Sep 01 2002 / 07:49:39
IP Address:  63.174.196.30
name = John A. Byrne
where = JBYRNE@MONTEREYBAY.COM
replyemail = Tadpole; in murky waters
comments = Call me old fashion: When Sophocles wrote this play; Oedipus had some major accountability and lost his kingdoms, wife/mother and eyesight. When J.D. Salinger wrote this story, his protagonist, Holden Caulfield narrates it from a psychiatric hospital. When Mike Nichol's wrote it, recent graduate Benjamin Braddock rides into adulthood with all of the responsibilities and uncertainties of a man coming of age, from the back of a greyhound bus. In Summer of '42, Hermie is "changed forever" from his affair with a young war widow; perhaps not for the better by his own retrospective narrative: At least his writer gave him some honesty and time to mourn the loss of his and the young widow's innocence.

Here lies the very seriously flawed message of this movie: No one is responsible or accountable for any legal, psychological and sexual crime. Just because the kid has a sophisticated intellect and can recite philosophy in French, are we expected to give him and his perpetrators carte blanc pardons in what is truly a redoing of Oedipus Rex, Catcher in the Rye, The Graduate, and a petty theft from Saturday Night Fever? The protagonists of these prior renditions are scared and penitent from their ordeals and, having attained some truth at whatever the cost, they grow to accept the responsibility for their knowledge and discovery. Tadpole is flagrant in its superficial and pseudo-comedic treatment of a very confused young man whose lust and passion are solely "partialism." He has a hand fetish, mind fetish, scarf/perfume fetish but has no real concept of love in any capacity other than a narcissistic notion of himself and Voltaire, whom he uses much like Woody Allen uses Bogart in Play it again, Sam. And while I'm on the subject of fetishes, he is seduced by Bebe Newirth who is wearing a long fur coat, leather pants and spandex tank top with the stepmother's scarf (the boys love object) draped around her neck: So add a count of grand theft from von Sacher-Masoch's "Venus in Furs" and you can see why this movie is insulting, damaging and degrading all at the same time.

Fear not, since all is made right by Hollywood when the boy gets on the train back to school and returns some flirtatious overtures from a more appropriate love interest attending the same private school.

And then comes the final blow...

The movie ends to Bowie's anthem of teen angst, sexual complexity and coming of age...
"Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes" This is like pouring vintage port on a tootsie pop: No one has changed! And to quote "the man who sold the world"
"And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're going through"

a) There is no "consultation" in this movie aside from Sigorney Weaver making her stepson a "June Cleaver" sandwich
b) The kid and the adults have zero awareness of what they're going through.

Under Greek law, Oedipus was not innocent; "there is no guilty act without a guilty mind." The shame and harm in this movie is that no one believes they are guilty or responsible to respond or resolve directly, their participation in a sexual crime with a 15 year-old boy. Sadly, it finally attains Oedipus' eyesight without his introspective vision.