Tadpole

Oscar Grubman (Aaron Stanford) is a fifteen years old French student, who lives in USA, and spends the Thanksgiving with his father Stanley Grubman (John Ritter) and his stepmother Eve (Sigourney Weaver) in their apartment in New York. His mother is French and lives in France. Oscar is very precocious, cultured, polyglot and loves poetry, and he finds the girls of his age very silly, feeling a great attraction for older women. Oscar has a crush on his stepmother. However, her forty and something years best friend Diane Lodder (Bebe Neuwirth) has an affair with Oscar, and he becomes quite confused with this new situation. "Tadpole" is a reasonable comedy only, having some funny situations, but never reaching a target, having a terrible conclusion. When the viewer finishes watching the film, he will certainly ask: -What is the point? Further, in accordance with the information in IMDb, Aaron Stanford was born in 1977. Therefore, he was completely miscast, being twenty-five years old and pretending he is fifteen. Further, he is not charismatic as his character would require. John Ritter is a reasonable actor, but looks very snob in the role of a history professor of Columbia. Sigourney Weaver is lost, in a character who is neither "Mrs. Robinson" nor an example of a faithful wife. The best parts of the story belong to Bebe Neuwirth, who is amazingly funny and makes the film worth, together with its soundtrack. In summary, "Tadpole" is a forgettable entertainment, recommended for killing time. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Um Jovem Sedutor" ("A Young Seducer")

Better and cleaner than Mrs. Robinson, however the themes are disturbing and even illegal or criminal. In Canada, the age of consent is down to 14, and that behavior may be legal here, if none of those adults were in a position of authority.

However, the story is well acted, and appeared to be convincing as a drama. A well thought out story. It is not a porn type movie and only french kissing was really played, and there was no nudity at all in the movie. That being said, it is given a positive rating here, because it is a well-thought out drama involving a socio-sexual taboo. It's rated higher because it's a good movie for debate and discussion on sexuality as a whole, and the other features I stated above.

What really drives this movie is the socio-sexual taboo of a teenage boy and 40 year old women in romantic interactions. It is natural for a teenager to want to explore their sexuality - which makes them vulnerable to sexual predators - and perhaps this movie shows that these predators do not have to be a sick old male psycho going after a school girl, but could be any female. If it were a sex addicted 40 year old man going after a 15 year old school girl, this movie would have been banned.

I was lucky enough to see this film at the Cine Vegas Film Festival last week and I must say that I am shocked at its low overall score thus far. The best part of this film is its screenplay. Heather McGowen and Niels Mueller did an wonderful job putting this story together. If you are looking for a film that knows how to develop its characters, build suspense and most importantly can tell a story the way it is meant to be told, then you need to see Tadpole. The acting in this film was also excellent. Bebe Neuwirth, John Ritter and Aaron Stanford gave great performances. This is a funny and touching film that anyone that is a fan of a good screenplay will enjoy.

I'm perplexed by the number of people who seem to miss the crucial element of this film: that Oscar is not as mature as he thinks he is. His "love" for Eve doesn't feel real to the viewer because it's not. His patter--at tea, in the bar, and elsewhere--feels forced and self-conscious because it is. Because he is very intelligent, he makes the classic adolescent mistake of overestimating his own maturity and the force of his own feelings. As Diane, Bebe Neuwirth points out that it's not his maturity that draws so many women to him, but that he is still unjaded. That is, his most attractive quality is in fact the precise opposite of what he thinks it is. Eve's rebuff, though a bit ambivalent, forces him to reevaluate his own feelings. The film's only major flaw is that it leaves this process underexplicated, but when at the end he is more responsive to his classmate's overtures it becomes clear that he is starting to see the light, however vaguely. The film's point is thus obvious: a crucial part of growing up is realizing how much growing up one has left to do. That it makes this point in such a refreshing, funny, and absurd way is the film's charm.

With subject matter that many might consider offensive (fifteen year-old boy in love with his step-mother and seduced by older woman), TADPOLE manages to be a charming, witty light comedy with a sensitive look at a controversial theme--a coming-of-age story with heart.

And its hero, a sophisticated fifteen year-old played by a twenty-five year-old actor (AARON STANFORD), is a natural in the title role, completely convincing as the impressionable youth living with his step-mother (SIGOURNEY WEAVER) and father (JOHN RITTER) in a fancy New York City apartment. Ritter plays the busy working father in one of his rare serious roles and is excellent, as is Weaver as the woman who discovers that her son has been having an affair with her best friend (BEBE NEUWIRTH). Neuwirth makes the most of her sly comic scenes as a temptress who awakens hormones in the teen-ager. A restaurant scene with the boy and his parents is a highlight of the story, where her deceptive conduct is exposed by Ritter's observation of an indiscretion in a mirrored image.

Witty and humorous, never taking itself seriously, it's an amiable tale told with deft touches and it moves briskly under Gary Winick's nimble direction with some nice glimpses of Manhattan's upper east side.