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Tadpole is a pleasingly off-kilter
by MATTHEW HAYS A Muppet Baby version of Woody Allen, at the dawn of his hormone-overflowing teen years, falls for his stepmother, a brilliant scientist. Wacky hijinks ensue. If those two sentences make you seriously nauseous, you might want to stay away from Tadpole, the independent feature from filmmaker Gary Winick. While the film’s protagonist, played by newcomer Aaron Stanford, isn’t as quick with the one-liners as the Woodman, he’s every bit as neurotic. And he’s in the family way as Allen is in so many of his films (er… and in real life). Stanford, it seems, has been struck with the adolescent love bug, but this time, he’s seriously hot and bothered about his own step-mom, Sigourney Weaver. Stanford’s father (played by John Ritter) is an absent-minded history academic who becomes concerned when his son says he’d like to go into medicine. Can this be the son who’s constantly quoting Voltaire and explaining the true meaning of the economic theories inherent in The Wealth of Nations? Ritter is so removed from the reality of his son’s life that he hasn’t noticed: the offspring is thoroughly smitten with Weaver, a scientist, and thus the switch in scholastic focus to medicine. Standing in the wings is Weaver’s best friend, the fortysomething Bebe Neuwirth, a delightfully nutty New Yorker (the kind often seen in movies like this) who beds a tipsy Stanford early in the film. Though I don’t know if we can call it a trend yet, I do find it noteworthy that this is the second film in as many weeks where a fortyish woman commits statutory rape with a teen lad (joining last week’s Lovely & Amazing). It’s Woody’s universe, turned upside-down. Ritter, Weaver and Neuwirth are all fine in their respective adult roles, but Stanford is a standout as the confused teen. He plays a brilliant combination of childish awkwardness and emerging adult desire beautifully, a cool combination of comedy and what he probably thinks of as tragedy. The casting call is a solid one. An anti-Tom Cruise, Stanford looks alternately homely and handsome as he’s caught between the world of the infantile and the grown-up universe. We’re chronically reminded of his intellectual posing by intertitle quotes from Voltaire’s oeuvre. Director
Winick is helped considerably by Heather McGowan and Niels Mueller’s
smart screenplay, a script that takes nothing for granted. In a major
studio film, we could see this going in so many of the wrong directions.
And thankfully, Winick avoids any didactic lessons that lesser filmmakers
might have rallied around. Instead, Tadpole does ultimately reveal a
subtle, witty prince of a film to be charmed by. Neurotic and a bit
self-obsessed, yes, but funny and sweet too. : Tadpole opens July 26 >> Movie Listings |
