I was going to start by complaining that Tadpole's teenage Oscar, for all his spouting Voltaire, needed a little more Julien Sorel, a little more pride, even self-deceptive pride, about attaining Bebe Neuwirth's Diane. Sorel would have rationalized some way to manipulate his impure love, at one with his purer desire. But maybe some of this is already in the film and the character. Tadpole's best and funniest moments have Oscar and Neuwirth sparing as equals. As soon as it begins to soar though, it backs off. Weaver's directed to act ethereal, and that's what she does, as if she never loses sight of her image in the fictional Oscar's eye. To the film's loss, she seems to act not so much the innocently unaware object of Oscar's fantasy as the maudlin fantasy itself. She acts against the film's fictional reality. Maybe such things aren't feasible with a big star in a small film, but I would have, as much as possible, denied her access to the parts of the script that define Oscar. If not that, then I would have written her flawed somehow, fatally bored through some self-interest of her own with husband Ritter, or overwhelmed with a nonsexual crush on Neuwirth, inspired by Neuwirth's lack of restraint. She is, after all, as Oscar keeps saying, his STEPmother. Aside from Oscar's not-quite-past-jailbait age, and her legal marriage to Ritter, she's approximately as legal as Woody Allen was. Give her the freedom to truly hesitate over Oscar. I'm sure Neuwirth scares the hell out of some of the film's audience. Weaver, the bigger star, should have been allowed somehow to up the ante, to compete with Neuwirth, if not in details of the plot, then just as actress to actress. Neuwirth acts. Weaver's been allowed only to pose and pander.
Review of Tadpole
