TADPOLE (Gary Winick, 2002)

Reviewed: August 13th, 2002

Not even worthy of the time it's gonna take me to write about it; without Tadpole's ultra-padded, marathon, 9 minute end credits (which crawl at a stoned snail's pace) it'd run a scant seventy minutes, which I'm not sure even qualifies it as a feature length film. Tadpole certainly didn't play like a movie to me; this is a mediocre sitcom episode stretched and stretched and stretched. Every inch of material Tadpole covers is covered supremely better in masterpieces The Graduate and especially Rushmore. (There's even a reference to The Graduate in Tadpole; John Ritter's character remarks, "This is all so The Graduate." That's what pop culture has come to, folks. You can make far inferior versions of other films, just acknowledge you're doing so in the script.)

When I go to the movies I want to see something I've never seen before. I want a new experience, new characters, new sensations. What's the point of making a tired retread? Is there anyone of sound mind, who given the choice one year down the line between taking Tadpole off a DVD rack versus taking Rushmore off a DVD rack, is gonna choose the former? Filmmakers have to stir the pot. After a century of cinema, it's a filmmaker obligation to try and do better than what's come before. If we've seen it already, and we've seen it done brilliantly already, then move on. Approach the material from a new angle. Imagine where movies would be if they never evolved.

Tadpole follows 15-year old Oscar Grubman (Aaron Stanford), a precocious, utterly obnoxious, Voltaire-quoting snot who's unfortunately in love with his stepmother (played without flavor by Sigourney Weaver). He also speaks fluent French. And according to all the older women who want to sleep with him (including Bebe Neuwirth's character, the best friend of his stepmother, who actually does sleep with him), he's passionate. Well woop de fucking do dah, the kid's passionate. He's also pretentious, arrogant and altogether mean.

The one highlight of Tadpole is Bebe Neuwirth's ethereal performance. Neuwirth's vibrant, lovely, stylish, deliciously snaky, and easily the funniest person in the film. She's who I fell in love with, not Sigourney Weaver's plain Jane.

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