Tiptoes

Amazon.com

An unusual and heartfelt drama about prejudice and the bonds of family, Tiptoes centers around Steven (Matthew McConaughey, EDtv), a firefighter whose artist girlfriend Carol (Kate Beckinsale, Laurel Canyon) gets pregnant. When Steven reacts with unexpected dismay, Carol is perplexed--until she learns that the rest of Steven's family are dwarves, including Steven's twin brother Rolfe (Gary Oldman, Sid & Nancy, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban). Though it's initially hard to take Oldman as a dwarf (the special effects are limited), his performance is so rich and remarkable that you become engaged with Rolfe as a person. Tiptoes occasionally veers into plaintive "dwarves are people too" territory, but most of the movie is strikingly honest and undidactic about the complex emotional and social terrain that dwarves inhabit. McConaughey and Beckinsale are excellent, as are Patricia Arquette (Flirting with Disaster) and Peter Dinklage (The Station Agent). --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews:

Gary Oldman is the only reason to see this..........2007-07-26

This is a train wreck of a movie. The only redeeming quality is seeing Gary Oldman playing the dwarf brother. That man can do anything onscreen. From Dracula, to Sirius Black, Beethoven, Joe Orton, and the Lt. in Batman--he is simply amazing with an incredible range. However, his talent overshadows all of the other BAD acting in this film. I mean BAD. Matthew McConaughey CANNOT act. Kate Beckinsale was great in Serendipity, but here she sports an unnatural American accent and fake-looking tattoos. Patricia Arquette is an absolute disaster and a totally unnecessary character. Peter Dinklage is talented--but why the French accent? It is unfortunate, but I think that this film does the exact opposite of what its intentions were, which was to get the viewer to understand and root for the little people. It doesn't do that. They are very much exploited here.

The Worst I have seen of Matthew McConaughey.......2006-08-28

This movie is different and if you are a Matthew McConaughey fan like I am don't bother with this movie. It's about him being from a family of midgets and is ashamed of it and when he gets married and his wife becomes pregnant he leaves her because he is afraid that the baby will be a midget too. And to top it off the ending even sucks. I would reccomend, "How to loose a guy in 10 Days"; "A Time to Kill"; "Amastad"; "Failure to Launch"; "Sahara"; " Two for the Money" ect. Any of these movies are great and he shows his awesome acting skills, and great views of him as well :p ! But this movie was very disappointing and the message sent wasn't great at all. Matthew Mcconaughey is only worth watching at his best!!! He always looks good but this movie is just not him or his style. I would NOT reccomend this movie at all!!

Agree with some acting, however..........2006-05-26

Some of the acting, I agree, can be much better, and the strangeness between some characters should've been worked out so you can see their relationships on screen. Really, I watched this (of course) for Gary Oldman. The issue itself I thought was SO respectively handled that I ignored the acting to really love the movie. ESPECIALLY for Gary - He's so wonderful at what he does, no matter WHAT it is! :)
I saw this a while back, but I'm remembering back and I think I cried even! It was very touching, and if you can look past the weirdness of Gary in a strange 'stature', then watch it. A film looking at this part of real life for people living as a dwarf is good to have out there. :)
4 Stars, minus one for acting improvement!

Pleasant Change From Blood, Gore and Sex.......2006-05-04

I saw this movie more than once. A pleasant change from blood, gore and sex as most movies today are plagued with. I admit I originally watched it because of yummy Matthew. (In his undies no less!) But Gary Oldman was fantastic! Could this really be the forbidding Count Dracula? I thought all of the characters were well acted and the subject matter worth thinking about. I worked for many years with handicapped children and their world IS different than ours. I found the subject realistic because many parents cannot accept a "different" child.I gave it a 4 instead of a 5 because I didn't like the ending. It seemed to need another half hour to see if Steven could put it back together with Carol. Also, because the women's wardrobes were too bizarre for my tastes and I found that distracting. Call me lop sided because I suppose I would like ANYTHING with the divineMr. McC in it!

The Return Of A Legend.......2005-12-04

Gary Oldman reaches deep down into the tormented memories of his short-lived marriage to Uma Thurman to create the part of Rolfe in TIPTOES, director Matthew Bright's searing dissection of celebrity marriage and the perils of not telling your wife everything about yourself. He plays one of two twin brothers, one of whom grows up to be a dwarf, a free lance writer with a column syndicated in the Chicago Tribune. That's the character Gary Oldman plays. I was astonished to see him so short in this movie. Are special effects of this kind so inexpensive now that they could be lavished even in a movie which otherwise looks like it cost maybe $4 million dollars, in other words, hardly anything in today's big budget Hollywood? Sometimes Oldman was photogaphed in a way which suggested that he was sitting on the ground, for example, in a rauncy motel room he's sitting between two beds while Patricia Arquette is rollingaround having sex with another "little" actor, the French Marxist firebrand, "Maurice," played by Peter Dinklage, who runs away with the whole movie with his preposterous "French" accent saying, "Ze marriage is for ze morons!"

I liked Dinklage's performance. I wonder if they could use reverse special effects as cast him as a man of normal height and all the other actors could be magically shrunk to his height like the hobbit boys in LORD OF THE RINGS. Patricia Arquette as "Lucy" looks rough, like she slept the whole night out in the woods the evening before she reported for duty on TIPTOES. In the screen's most romantic scene, Peter Dinklage braids his greasy black hair into flowing cornrows in homage to Arquette's Bo Derek hairdo in a picnic slash wedding sequence.

Matthew Bright made "Freeway," the nutty caper that turned Reese Witherspoon into a indie icon. Here he's hardly as successful, but maybe he meant the picture to be as bizarrely truncated as this one.

We saw Chad Everett the other night as one of Ann-Margret's boyfriends in MADE IN PARIS. How strange to see him playing Kate Beckinsale's controlling father in TIPTOES--and still looking pretty good all things considered. The movie should have been about his character and had all the others sort of crossing his path at different places. He still has the looks and charm and talent that made him an acting legend. Go, Chad, go!

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