Tideland (2006)

Even before the depraved fantasy drama “Tideland” begins, director/co-writer/ex-Python Terry Gilliam appears on screen to warn his audience: “This is a rough film. It deals with a child in terrible situations. You probably will hate it.” How prophetic. Here, a young girl is shoved through a ringer so demoralizing it makes the “Saw” films seem quaint. I stopped the movie four times, only willing to continue for hope of a silver lining. In a theater I would have walked out. And I dig dark films of all stripes. But not this+

The film begins with 9-year-old Jeliza-Rose (Jodelle Ferland) cooking heroin fixes in the kitchen for her junkie parents, a tepid rock star (Jeff Bridges) and a shrieking Courtney Love freak (Jennifer Tilly). Mom dies. Father and daughter flee for the farm house where he was raised. Then dad ODs, and rots in a chair. Jeliza-Rose idles her lonely time playing with four severed dolls heads that talk to her. Are the voices her imagination, or the beginning of schizophrenia? We never know.

Our girl is not alone for long. A second abusive, shrieking woman (Janet McTeer) appears, dressed all in black. She dumps more misery on Jeliza-Rose, who is so desperate for attention and oblivious of abuse that she laps it up. Had enough? Gilliam is not through yet. (The movie is based on a novel of the same name.)

McTeer’s Wicked Witch embalms the father for Jeliza-Rose to cuddle with, and the woman has a mentally disabled adult brother (Brendan Fletcher) who takes a liking to Jeliza-Rose. The girl, age 9, laps up this attention, too. Yes, Gilliam goes there. Our young girl and her adult buddy become “kissy buddies.” When he straddles her in bed, and they play tongue flicks --- that was the third time I stopped the film. The fourth time: McTeer physically attacks the girl. If you add in Ferland’s elementary Miss Scahlett accent, I had a fifth reason to quit watching.

Gilliam is a twisted master of the outlandish macabre, be they brilliant (“Brazil”) or failed (“The Brothers Grimm),” but here, he’s just a twisted fuck. He thinks he’s entertaining us with deep childhood angst, oddball special effects, swooshing cameras and his over-acting cast. Gilliam insists his film is brave and artistic because it’s “from a child’s innocent perspective.” Bullshit. He’s an adult, and he should know better. “Tideland” wallows in child-endangering filth, and serves up talking squirrels as a joke. F