Tiptoes
| Tiptoes | |
|---|---|
 DVD cover for Tiptoes | |
| Directed by | Matthew Bright |
| Produced by |
Elie Cohn Chris Hanley Fernando Sulichin Douglas Urbanski Brad Wyman |
| Written by | Bill Weiner |
| Starring |
Matthew McConaughey Kate Beckinsale Patricia Arquette Gary Oldman |
| Music by | Curt Sobel |
| Cinematography | Sonja Rom |
| Edited by | Paul Heiman |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Reality Check Productions |
Release dates | September 8, 2003 |
Running time |
90 minutes 91 minutes (France) |
| Country |
United States France |
| Language | English |
Tiptoes (also known as Tiny Tiptoes) is a 2003 film starring Matthew McConaughey, Kate Beckinsale, Patricia Arquette and Gary Oldman. The film was screened at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival.[1] It was never released theatrically in the United States and it instead went straight to DVD.
Plot
Carol (Beckinsale)—a talented painter and independent woman—falls in love with Steven (McConaughey) without knowing much about him other than he's the perfect man. But when Carol finds herself pregnant it forces Steven to expose his darkest secret—his family. Steven happens to be the only average-sized person in a family of dwarfs, including his twin brother Rolfe (Oldman). Carol and Steven are then forced to come to terms with the fact that the baby she carries may be born a dwarf. This terrifies Steven, who does not want his child to suffer the same way Rolfe did. As Carol decides to carry the child, she and Steven grow further apart, and she begins to rely on Rolfe to teach her about life as a dwarf.
Cast
- Gary Oldman as Rolfe Bedalia, Steven's twin brother
- Kate Beckinsale as Carol, Steven's fiancée
- Matthew McConaughey as Steven Bedalia, Rolfe's twin brother
- Patricia Arquette as Lucy, Maurice's girlfriend
- Peter Dinklage as Maurice, Rolfe's best friend
- Debbie Lee Carrington as Kitty Katz
- Susan Barnes as Sylvia, Carol's mother
- Bridget Powerz as Sally, Rolfe on-off girlfriend
- Ed Gale as Bobby Barry, Rolfe and Steven's uncle
- Michael J. Anderson as Bruno Bedalia, Rolfe and Steven's father
- Alexa Nikolas as Susan Barry, Rolfe and Steve's aunt
- David Alan Grier as Jerry Robin Jr.
Reception
Critical reaction to Tiptoes was negative. Based on 7 reviews, the film carries a "rotten" rating of 29% at aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes.[2] Bill Gibron of PopMatters called the film "insensitive", adding: "Clearly crafted as a wake-up call to all the nasty 'normals' out there, it substitutes schmaltz for sincerity to create a heated hate crime all its own."[3] Variety reviewer Lisa Nesselson described the film as "an honorable failure" that "comes up short in many departments", despite its "bracingly peculiar premise and astonishingly fine [performance] from Gary Oldman".[4] Oldman's turn was included in BBC critic Mark Kermode's "Great Acting in Bad Films" in 2012.[5]
Production
According to Peter Dinklage, the original cut of the film was "gorgeous", but the director was fired shortly after turning it in, and the people who fired him recut the film into a "rom-com with dwarves".[6]
References
- ↑ Rabin, Nathan. "It's Only The Size Of Your Heart That Counts Case File #154: Tiptoes". The A.V. Club. Retrieved September 10, 2010.
- ↑ "Tiptoes". Rotten Tomatoes.
- ↑ Gibron, Bill (June 9, 2010). "Insensitive Things Come in Small Packages". PopMatters.
- ↑ Nesselson, Lisa (24 September 2003). Tiptoes review. Variety. Retrieved 14 July 2014.
- ↑ Kermode, Mark. Great Acting in Bad Films. BBC. 27 January 2012. Retrieved 14 July 2014.
- ↑ Kois, Dan (March 29, 2012). "Peter Dinklage Was Smart to Say No". The New York Times.