Tadpole

Impressive and disturbing in just about equal measure, the curious coming-of-age piece Tadpole – winner of the Director’s Award at Sundance – is conspicuously well-acted throughout and highly accomplished for a $150,000 shoot. It is, however, highly problematic in another sense, since its sexual coupling of a 15-year-old boy and a woman in her forties would certainly have caused uproar (and rightly so) if the gender roles had been reversed.

It’s the strange tale of Oscar (Aaron Stanford), a clearly disturbed 15-year-old weirdo who manages to fall in love – yes, in love – with his comparatively ancient stepmother Eve, played by Sigourney Weaver. In the meantime, the poor impatient soul is fucking Eve’s opportunistic best mate (Bebe Neuwirth) whenever alcohol blurs his eyesight sufficiently.

Though Oscar is a deeply pretentious, arrogant and dislikeable sod, prone to quoting Voltaire in ordinary conversation, and spectaculary rude to girls his own age, his smarminess makes for good cinematic company, while Weaver and Neuwirth act every bit as well as the script demands.

A light comic touch and consistent flashes of mordant humour make Tadpole very engaging viewing throughout. Nonetheless, the proto-paedophile subtext should not pass unnoticed, nor should a scene (disturbingly unremarkable by recent chick-flick standards) where Weaver and Neuwirth discuss, rationalise and justify the latter’s behaviour on vague grounds of her ‘needs’. Still, the film represents an auspicious debut for first-time director Gary Winick, as well as for its stikingly intense young lead Aaron Stanford.

Date-movie of the year, anyway. Or maybe not.