Tideland (15) <!-- none onestar twostar threestar fourstar fivestar -->

A shapeless, overbearing muddle of Gothic stylings and wigged-out performances: in other words, another Terry Gilliam movie. This could give M Night Shyamalan a run for his money on the self-indulgence front, the difference being that Gilliam got found out a long time ago. And still they let him make movies!

Tideland, based on a novel by Mitch Cullin, concerns the Alice-in-Wonderland-like adventures of young Jeliza-Rose (Jodelle Ferland), who is left orphaned by the death of her junkie parents (Jeff Bridges, Jennifer Tilly) and lights out for a remote farmhouse situated upon a Wyeth-like cornfield. Here she falls in with a couple of crazies, hears squirrels talk, and communes with her four headless dolls.

It's a fractured dreamworld in which Gilliam gets so involved that it's as if he forgets that he is directing a movie. The result is deeply tiresome.