User reviews

This is one of those festival movies that people like...because they see it at a festival. Let's face it, a lot of bad movies get good reviews at festivals. But once they are released into the real world, their flaws are exposed.

This isn't really a terrible movie, it just isn't very good. It certainly isn't memorable. Once it is over, it is easily forgotten.

The problem is that the two main characters are stereotypes. There is little to no character development or depth to them. In a way, that is the point. But still, they aren't interesting. Nor is the supposedly comedic journey they go on. I didn't crack a smile at anything they did or happened to them. I just didn't care about the two girls.

I hate to use this word, because it is overused, and because it is often used to disguise a lack of ability to express oneself with any depth. But in the spirit of the people in the movie, I would say, "Meh".

If ever you wondered what happened to the 'valley girl' ethic, rest assured that it is alive and well in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Harper (Bridey Elliott) & Allie (Clare McNulty) are 20-something best friends whose parental affluence hasn't really required them to mature in the years since college. This comedy follows their ill-conceived attempt at being thrifty as they choose to bike (rather than taxi) across Brooklyn to a Rockaway Beach party. These are two of the most vapid and shallow characters ever portrayed as protagonists - they don't learn a thing as they spend hundreds of dollars during their 10 mile odyssey - and that's what's so funny. As for winning the SXSW Grand Jury Prize, I can totally see the comparisons with, festival darling, Lena Dunham's 'Girls' - which is a guilty pleasure of mine - but, where Dunham's wit and goofy characters coax empathy, the 'Fort Tilden' characters have no apparent redeeming qualities. I laughed a bit but this is no Patsy & Edina or Romy & Michele; I got more than my fill of Harper, Allie, and their equally self-centered world.

'Fort Tilden' is the tale of a ten-mile road trip by a couple of bored Brooklyn brats, who head for the beach to hook up with a pair of charmless dudes. Their airhead odyssey comprises only lame exchanges and minor fiascoes involving various acquaintances and strangers, so the big adventure soon turns into a plodding marathon by bicycle, cab and foot. The 'heroines' are portrayed as spineless selfish simpletons, and although the film is clearly intended to be a comedy, it's short on laughs, wit or interest.

The actresses struggle gamely with the pedestrian material, but their characters' whiny griping and fecklessness leaves one hoping a truck will squash them into roadkill at every intersection. When they finally meet their romantic prospects on a gray windswept seashore, the encounter is just another flaccid flop in a series of screw-ups.

The movie's premise is something with some potential. The characters are good in that they are similar in some ways and polar opposites in others. The dialog is good and it is well acted. However, it never captures the viewer. It always seems like the movie is going to pick up and then it never does. There were so many opportunities for great comedy that were just completely missed. The bike stealing scene for example could have been turned into something rather than simply having the characters stare blindly as their bicycle is stolen. It felt like the movie went on forever and the premise got thinner with each passing minute. I wish I could recommend this film because I love independents but it just simply never got going and the director, where as it was very well shot, really let some good opportunities slip away.

Those last two words "tediously adorable" is what this film, by writer/Director: Sarah-Violet Bliss, is all about!

The story opens with Bridely Elliott as 'Harper' & Clare McNulty as 'Allie' sharing an apartment near Brooklyn and it is the waning days of August. From their speech, character, and connections we can guess these two girls have grown up in a privileged background. Both live a mostly directionless, aimless, and self indulgent existence. We find out from friends that these two girls are always together and are more twin like than the singing twins that open the story on the apartment building rooftop party. Harper & Allie meet two boys at this party and discover the boys are going to Fort Tilden for a day at the beach. Harper invites herself and Allie to meet the boys at the beach the next day. The two boys do not object.

The next day is the beginning of this story. The two girls have made no plans on how to get to Fort Tilden and, just like their lives, their attempt to travel the ten mile journey is without direction and aimless. They are easily distracted by their self indulgence and personal needs. They even borrow a bicycle from a neighbor and ditch it when the other bike is stolen as they watch the thief take it.

After arriving at the beach, very late in the day, Harper & Allie learn a 'truth' about themselves. They are both about 25 years old and both are college graduates. The boys and two unexpected girls that are with the boys are just teenagers and still in high school. Harper & Allie had no idea they were just teens. Harper's & Allie's view of the world around them is just like they live it. They find themselves still thinking like teens and avoiding the responsibilities of being adults.

After returning to their apartment the movie ends just like it began. Allie receives a video on her computer by the singing twins and both girls listen to them sing and Allie describes them as being tediously adorable. That is how I found this film about a day in the life of Harper & Allie - tediously adorable. These two are likable and charming characters. Their intentions are noble in thought but both lack the will and drive to follow through. The dialog, editing, and acting are meritorious and I would recommend this film to anyone seeking a light comedy and a brief nonthreatening adventure of two girls in a big city.

May 2, 2020 - I recently watched this movie again and I still love it. Only this time I see that at movies end Allie has taken a personal leap by telling Harper - "Then don't listen". And Harper realizes she has had the carpet pulled out from under her. Anybody who has watched this film will understand what I mean.

Two neurotic, millennial females, from NY. The self-absorbed art scene. Pretty sad actually. Empty group of people with no actual talent, but they are all too fragile to tell each other that the aren't any good.

Reading other people's reviews of the film I can clearly see this movie isn't for everyone. But it was absolutely a movie for me!

The film is about two recent grads: best friends and roommates Harper and Allie. Meeting two cute guys at a performance neither of one want to be at they make loose plans to meet up with the guys at Fort Tilden the following day where they plan to hook up with them. The following day they set off on their bikes and of course everything that could go wrong does go wrong.

Let's get one thing straight: the women are straight up selfish, egotistical, a**holes. Behind their cutesy faux-kind personalities they snipe at one another and others and the more their plans go awry the more their facade drops. They are anti-heroines in the vein of Charlize Theron's Mavis in 'Young Adult'. If you liked that movie, you'll love this one.

I admit, I didn't -- couldn't -- watch this entire film. It seems that other reviewers agre with me, that this is a waste of film. The story of two self-centered idiots attempting to get across New York to a beach did not capture my attention.

I watched this movie as it was on a "top" 2015 movie list. Boy was watching this a mistake! I'm all for supporting indie films, but this lacked - a story. The main characters are childish and annoying, which quickly alienates the viewer (me). Borish main characters can be offset by interesting supporting characters that the duo meet along their journey, right? Everyone is more interesting than these two, but not enough the lift the movie up to watchable status.

All the other movie departments did a fine job - cinematography, set design, music, and editing. The main actors even "looked good", but they just had nothing of worth to say (script).

The story arc is - two girls who are spoiled, vain, and boring and act that way for 1Hr 25Mins, then a few minutes before the end of the movie they realize they may be spoiled, vain, and boring. The same movie and message could be easily been condensed down to 2-3 minutes.

Watching Fort Tilden it was nice to see film of my old home of Brooklyn. But sadly the film had a story and characters that were truly repellant.

Bridey Elliott and Clare McNulty are a pair of yuppies now living in the happening area of Williamsburg and basically they are a pair of entitled young women who decide that with cash a little low a day at the beach looks like a cheap day. Turns out to be anything but.

For those who don't know one has to traverse the Borough from north to south then cross the Marine Park Bridge and then travel a bit to the beaches of which Fort Tilden once an army post is one on the Rockaway Peninsula. It's quite a journey.

One of them is supposed to go to the Peace Corps and breaks an appointment with her sponsior. Something tells me her trip will be canceled.

Essentially these are characters you just don't care about.

A superb movie about people and who they are and what the world is like for them.

Reminiscent of James Joyce Ulysses, with all its complexities all the while , as if nothi8ng much is happening,

but in fact full lives are being led

Experiencing the wide rage of human experience and emotion, and the often seeming frustration futility of it all

The film is extraordinarily well acted and directed portraying the characters in a realistic fashion

If you are looking for cheap easy money Hollywood sensationalism this isn't for you.

The script was well written with many poignant moments.

I look forward to what is produced by this director .

The dynamic between the two actresses deserves recognition and is extremely difficult to capture . Most seem pretentious and strained but these two nailed it.

Idiotic, and probably one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

It's a good movie. Coffee scene alone is worth it. You won't be bummed that you spent time watching it. What more do you want? Okay, so IMDb wants five lines of text or they won't publish my review. I watched it twice to catch certain lines and nuances. Just watch it. It's good. Okay, they need another line of text...

These are your typical transplants that come and ruin this place. Don't call them NYers. We have grot and smarts. I watched to see their demise.

Yes, i am a bitter gen X loser. But i am a NYer and thats better than EVERYONE.

Throwing in my two cents about Fort Tilden. The acting and the cinematography is well done but as to the story, that is another matter.

Pretty sure some will find it amusing and I would hazard to guess some would find it offensive or a parody of a slice of the generation.

It was a hard watch for me but around 1 hour and 6 minutes it hit the core of what I thought it was about and the last 10 minutes further solidified what I though it was supposed to be about.

It doesn't have to be just millennials that the lesson of the movie applies to but anyone who ends up being so out of touch with the realities of life due to their upbringing.

Because it so plainly, generously reveals to all of us, who suffered through this movie, just how much of a lie it is that the young white people who move to inner areas of NYC are the progressive, liberal, equality driven, cultural enthusiasts that they and the media promotes and purports them to be (and even politics, when elections roll around and identity politics fly around everywhere and these aforementioned gentrifying hipster charlatans pretend to be your friend and beg you to vote their way, because they live in NYC so they can't be racist, right?).

Wrong. On the surface, so that you don't attack these people when they walk down the street which they neurotically believe will happen (or they certainly act that way hence the duo in this movie getting the heebie jeebies buying food from a Brooklyn bodega and being hesitant for about a 2 minute dialogue to publicly park their bikes or not), they claim to be harmless little artsies who aren't ignorantly afraid to live in certain areas, but it really takes no digging and barely any scratching the surface off to realize that they are exactly the hateful, prejudiced, classist, hypocritical, selfish morons the rest of us say they are, who live off their parents to sustain a living in NYC and are completely unwilling and incapable of contributing anything to the communities that they apathetically move into and stupidly opt to bicycle through. You don't live in this area and you presumptuously get lost in it and you have the nerve to insult the neighborhood and the people innocently walking by and call them "ghetto." Is this supposed to be funny? I lived in NYC majority of my life since being born there and I honestly have never been unsafe (except the times when it's after midnight and I'm walking alone of course and I still was perfectly safe. I've been in more danger in smaller towns actually because there's less witnesses around!) Anyway do you think you're doing yourself or your demographic any favors by demonstrating this ignorance?

At least Tiny Furniture 2010 intelligently nuanced the classic regional separatism of NYC through witticisms, I suppose, such as "I live in a sh-thole called Bushwick" or "Where are you gonna move, Fort Greene?" because these statements are full of social context alluding to the fact that, yes, young white people who are wealthy enough to do nothing all day except pretentious art are in fact moving to Bushwick and Fort Greene (I'm not proclaiming Tiny Furniture to be Shakespearean in the slightest but it is compared to this movie, the raggedy headed stepchild of the genre).

Or even Broad City on Comedy Central showed obnoxiously fearless young white women from upper middle classed backgrounds volunteering to live in NYC squalor to prove they live on the edge and sell it off as comedy while mocking the lifestyles of native New Yorkers that they struggle to adapt to. While it was annoying, it still was never ever offensive.

But these guys in Fort Tilden 2014 just come right out calling Flatbush ghetto. One of the best universities in the city is in Flatbush. It's so ghetto, yet here you are in lala land getting lost in it. I don't understand racist, classist people. If you hate it so much, why are you there?! What are you doing anyway deep in Brooklyn? Do you think being young white women in Brooklyn makes you ballsy? Ok? Now why make a movie about it? To someone somewhere, this is funny. But to most people, this is pointless and stupid. Why? Idk. Maybe invest in a map or gps, take the subway, call a cab or better yet, gtfo of NYC if it is just too ghetto for you to commute in, dummy. And you might say, hey it's just a movie. It's passed off as realism, and I'm sure we all know someone like the characters in the movie who move to NYC and then complain about it. And two, it's definitely racial because one thing you will learn about NYC if you ever go is that the demographics change neighborhood by neighborhood. They go to one area and say it's so beautiful (it is) in a scene where the two leads get harassed by a bunch of snobby, dramatic white Karens (I know nonwhite people who live in beautiful parts of NYC and other cities but this movie will have you think otherwise) yet when they bike through an area full of literally black and brown people and it looks no different than the other areas they were in, they use the word ghetto and are too disgusted to eat the food that Hispanics prepared for them??? What? Yet they buy a dirty barrel for $200 that a white homeless guy was merely sitting next to, assuming he was selling it? Then they buy drugs in broad daylight at a neighborhood park. Who's ghetto now??? Is it not ghetto because a white guy sold it to you, and it's pills not crack, so it's fine? Is riding a bike not ghetto too? If you're a person of color on a bike, you're poor and ghetto, right? Two young white women on a bike is fine though? They're not passing this off as a comedy mocking the characters such as Night At The Roxbury or something. They really expect us to find the characters funny as if their attitudes and reactions are relatable and reasonable. If there was a joke here, it's a bad one and they need help developing a sense of humor, a plot, characters, a script...everything. But no. Again, I'm glad they made this movie. All of my thoughts and feelings about gentrification in NYC have been confirmed here. Thanks!

On top of that, watching them ditch someone's bike they borrowed because their reasoning is so nonexistent is painfully annoying. Watching them call clothes cheap and tacky--meanwhile they ask other people for everything specifically money for basic things--is painfully annoying. It's not funny. I think even wealthy people would find them insufferable. At least Frances Ha 2012 showed her trying. I loved that movie. I didn't relate to her background, but I related to trying in NYC and in life as a single young woman. I think I even cried at the end.

This movie is about to make me cry too, but from agony.

NYC is for people who were born there, poor jobseekers, enrolled students, businesspeople, and entertainers (more so those who have concrete plans than those with open ended goals and dreams such as in Los Angeles). If you are not in the above groups, you should leave NYC. That specifically includes these two nasty pieces of you know what who snide and scorn everyone across the entire region of Brooklyn when they are no one to judge anyone.

And then one of them sarcastically says, "you're gonna be really comfortable in Africa" to the other one going to the Peace Corp in an African country. Was this a cue for viewers to laugh? I wanna meet whoever laughed and have a nice little chat... First of all, Africa has some very "comfortable" places, hence why so many people can't stop invading the place to take what's there. Secondly, if you know anything about the Peace Corp, they put you in places on every continent that no human would decide to go; that's the point of being a world volunteer! I read one of the job placements just now and they specifically stated for every position, including the ones that aren't in Africa, that you "may be without water, plumbing, electricity, internet" and that you may have to "walk miles to and from location" due to a lack of infrastructure and transportation. Therefore, this is not about Africa being uncomfortable; this is about Peace Corp placements intentionally being in uncomfortable places to propagate westernization and modernization, or to just help for a little while; it's like the Army but for teachers. So why was this made racial when every character in the movie kept insulting Africa?

Also, how typical of them to smack dab in the middle of the movie have them argue like it's some pivotal plot driver. The conversation was unbearable and nauseating, the way they argue so vapidly and vacuously. Ugh. I told myself when I first came here and read reviews, "they've been annihilated enough as it is, don't do it." Well that went away by the minute watching these two birds say and do the hateful nasty things they said and did.

A strange tale of the ordinary. I am not put off by the vacancy of the characters, they are like many people in falling short of their own values and goals. even the of being hedonistic party animals. This makes it funny- being up for bohemia but missing. I learned from the judgement everyone has of others- the fake-nice that pervades the social scene is quite educational. It sounds no fun to watch but the familiarity is cathartic. I also like how they are mean to each other yet supportive. background , ok boomer alert, I lived in Williamsburg in a time before the high rises, when a loft was a product of the crash of industry in the city limits. We had the kind of fun that the leads miss, scared as they are of "ghetto" brooklyn.

I can't believe that Fort Tilden gets only 3 of 5 stars. Overall! Perhaps there are two problems in the marketing: that it's a comedy, and that it's a movie for young people. As a truly old person--old enough to be a grandfather to the protagonists--I see Fort Tilden as a rather deep portrait of what (I imagine) it's like to be white, 30, aimless, and living in Brooklyn. It's a comedy in the very old sense: it talks seriously about life in a bemused way, rather than a tragic one. But Fort Tilden has echoes of James Joyce's Ulysses and much else. It is also a perfect picture of how for so many young people, their 50 something parents are just not there. It's also hysterically funny when it's not also sad. Check out the book the heroine puts out when they leave for the beach.

This movie is absolutely brilliant if you get it. Very smart and funny. It speaks to Millennials' staggering shortcomings which they are undoubtably oblivious to, but also paints them as ultimately sympathetic. These two girls create every bad situation they find themselves in, and lack the skills or selfawareness to get themselves out. They use everyone and everything around them, often without even being aware. But eventually, we see them as sad sympathetic characters. It is hilariously dark and has almost a Portlandia feel. Highly recommend. It appears that critics loved it, but fans? Not so much. Probably because it is primarily Millennials who would post user critiques on indie films, and this one may have hit too close to home for them.

Part of my affection for this film no doubt comes from my intimate familiarity with the Rockaways (even if the movie did introduce some cockeyed geography for plot purposes). But I don't like most American movies, and indies can be especially light and tiresome. Not so Fort Tilden. The two leads are absolutely compelling in their narcissism and baseness, a nightmarish Romy and Michelle with none of their redeeming qualities. I fear so many young affluent Americans grow up with so little core -- family tradition, religion, sound education -- they are unprepared for adult life which leaves them bewildered. Although plenty of East Asian kids are similarly confused, I have to think that the discipline necessarily enforced to learn their written languages and the overall demands of their education system put them better positioned. Anyway, truly worthwhile and rewarding viewing.