Tadpole

Theatrical Release Date: 2002 07 19 (USA - Limited)

UPC: 786936203981

Studio: Miramax

MPAA Rating: PG13   Contains:[Adult Situations, Questionable for Children, Adult Language]

Summary: Most 15-year-old boys are obsessed with the opposite sex, but this may be the only area in which Oscar Grubman (Aaron Stanford) could be called typical. An honor student at an exclusive prep school, Oscar is confident, keenly intelligent, speaks fluent French, and is well versed in the work of a number of French authors, particularly his favorite, Voltaire. Oscar seems to have gotten his fascination with French culture from his mother, who several years ago divorced his father Stanley (John Ritter), a college professor, and moved to Paris. Stanley has recently remarried, taking an attractive woman in her mid-forties, Eve (Sigourney Weaver), as his new wife. Oscar, however, senses that Eve isn't happy in their marriage; certain he can give Eve the affection (both physical and emotional) that she needs, Oscar begins waging a low-key but ardent campaign to seduce his step-mother over the course of Thanksgiving weekend, despite the fact a number of Oscar's female classmates have made no secret of their attraction to him. Oscar's efforts to bed Eve attract the attention of one of her close friends, Diane (Bebe Neuwirth), a smart and sexy chiropractor who also becomes the not-entirely-unwelcome focus of Oscar's romantic attentions. Shot using digital video equipment, Tadpole was enthusiastically received at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, where the film's director, Gary Winick, received the Director's Award. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Category: Comedy

Awards: Dramatic Directing Award – Sundance Film Festival Special Mention for Excellence in Filmmaking – National Board of Review

Features: ccFeature commentary with director Gary Winick
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
Widescreen 1.85:1

Tadpole

Format: DVD

Release Date: 01/21/2003

Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Theatre Wide-Screen

Audio: DD5.1 Dolby Digital 5.1

Runtime: 78 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English

Region: USA & territories, Canada

Chapters: Side #1 --
1. Opening Credits: "Revealed by the Hand" [4:38]
2. She [6:29]
3. High Expectations [4:31]
4. Alleviating Stress [6:17]
5. "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" [4:35]
6. "My Love, My Liver" [5:53]
7. A Novel Find [5:47]
8. "I Need Sideburns" [4:07]
9. A Revealing Dinner [9:37]
10. True Passion? [5:47]
11. Listening and Imagining [7:49]
12. "How's Your Liver?" [5:13]
13. End Credits [7:32]

Brian J. Dillard

Charmingly sweet and literate, this sexual comedy of errors provides a far less forced J.D. Salinger update than the previous year's wildly praised The Royal Tenenbaums. With its muted digital-video palette and tasteful Upper West Side environs, Gary Winick's cinematic universe is as familiar as a Woody Allen classic. But the script, by Niels Mueller and Heather McGowan, proves equally at home in the poetry-steeped libido of a precocious teen as it does in the quiet contentment of finely appointed professionals. Sigourney Weaver buttons down, inhabiting a more thoughtful, less brittle variation on the upper middle-class matron she played so convincingly in Ang Lee's The Ice Storm. John Ritter, meanwhile, continues his impressive string of character roles as the frumpy professor whose son rightly sees through his hollow domestic routine. In the title role, Aaron Stanford is a revelation, needy but grave and dignified, the gears turning almost invisibly behind his hungry eyes. But it's Bebe Neuwirth's wicked cackle and Broadway-honed comic acuity that give the film its friction and its warm sense of abandon. These characters live in a carefully circumscribed world of rent control and the right wine, but Neuwirth's vitality breaks through the exteriors and into the heart of the matter -- the crackle of longing that accumulates like static electricity and sometimes discharges at the wrong place and time. It's almost ridiculous to single out yet another performance after praising all of the principals, but Robert Iler shines, too, as Oscar's common-sensical comic foil. From its cast to its cinematography to its finely honed dialogue, Tadpole gets every little detail right. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi

Cast and Crew: John Sloss  Executive Producer 
Gary Winick  Director 
Gary Winick  Producer 
Dolly Hall  Producer 
Niels Mueller  Screenwriter 
Caroline Kaplan  Executive Producer 
Jonathan Sehring  Executive Producer 
Alexis Alexanian  Producer 
Heather McGowan  Screenwriter 
Renaud Pion  Composer (Music Score) 
Sigourney Weaver  Actor 
Aaron Stanford  Actor 
John Ritter  Actor 
Bebe Neuwirth  Actor 
Robert Iler  Actor 
Adam Le Fevre  Actor 
Peter Appel  Actor 
Alicia van Couvering  Actor 
Kate Mara  Actor 
Hope Chernov  Actor 
Debbon Ayer  Actor 
Ron Rifkin  Actor 
Paul Butler  Actor 

Country: USA