This film premiered at Sundance and I was happy to have the opportunity to see it. I am a big fan of Gary Oldman and was looking forward to seeing him play a dwarf. The storyline was interesting; however the movie fell flat. Strangely enough, I was distracted by Oldman's portrayal of a dwarf...I kept wondering how they made him look so small instead of concentrating on the story. I never did figure out what Peter Dinklage and Patricia Arquette's characters had to do with the story; perhaps just to show that little people have relationships with "normal" size people...I don't know. I thought Dinklage, Arquette, Oldman and Kate Beckinsale all turned in good performances, but somehow all of them couldn't save this movie.

It's hard to say what this movie exactly tries to achieve. It awfully tries to be a political correct movie towards 'little people' and the movie almost becomes documentary like and doesn't even try to hide this. The moral of the movie is too cheesy and overdone.

It's painfully obvious that writer Bill Weiner is still a beginning writer. The movie is written awfully simple and has some downward horrible dialog in it.

It's a big mystery to me why so many big stars appeared in this movie. Gary Oldman, Matthew McConaughey, Kate Beckinsale and Patricia Arquette are some big names in the business. They are given awful material to work with and the movie felt like a waste of their talent. Especially Gary Oldman seemed out of place. He plays a 'little person' in this movie and to me he didn't looked very convincing. It was highly obvious to me that Oldman was sitting on his knees the whole movie, which was terribly distracting. Couldn't they had just cast a real 'little person' for that role? There are some many great little actors out there. Oldman was also terribly unconvincing as Matthew McConaughey TWIN BROTHER. They look absolutely nothing like each other and on top of that Oldman is also too old to be believable as McConaughey's twin brother. This movie made me realize that Oldman is really getting old now. He also looked old in "Batman Begins" but I though it was due to make-up. This movie however made me realize that Oldman really looks as old as that.

But of course this movie is far from the worst ever. The movie is professionally good looking and of course, even though they were given awful material to work with, the famous actors also bring some sparks and life to the movie.

The story and moral of the movie are too obvious. It's certainly a watchable movie but I in no case would recommend it to anyone.

5/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

The beginning of "Tiptoes" is simply excellent and approaches a totally original theme: the painter Carol (Kate Beckinsale) and the firemen instructor Steven (Matthew McConaughey) are a young couple in love. The ambivalent Steven has a deep inner secret: he is the unique normal size man in his family of dwarfs, and he loves his family but he does not live comfortable with this situation. When Carol gets pregnant, coincidently the twin dwarf brother of Steven, Rolfe (Gary Oldman),pays an unexpected visit to Carol. She becomes shocked with the situation, while being introduced to Steven's family. The movie works perfectly up to this point, showing an open-minded woman accepting literally the minorities. However, from the moment when the Jewish parents of Carol are introduced to Steven's family on, the screenplay becomes irregular, corny in some moments, silly in others, and the open conclusion is very disappointing, indeed terrible.

It was good to see Gary Oldman in a sensational role, and the gorgeous Kate Beckinsale playing a really beautiful character, without any prejudice and accepting the imperfections of life. Patricia Arquette is still very hot, but she is very stereotyped in the role of the crazy Lucy. I regret that such excellent original idea being wasted in an awful screenplay. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Na Ponta dos Pés" ("Tiptoes")