Wordiezett So much average

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Pluskylang Great Film overall

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Scott LeBrun 15 year old Oscar Grubman (played by 25 year old Aaron Stanford) definitely has the soul of someone much older - but not the wisdom. He has no romantic time for girls his own age - he actually prefers women, for their maturity and experience. In fact, he has a crush on his worldly stepmother Eve (Sigourney Weaver), whom he idealizes. In an amusing farcical turn of events, he sleeps with Eves' friend Diane (Bebe Neuwirth, who's never looked sexier).This is a reasonably funny, lightly entertaining comedy about a young man with lots of book smarts and an endearing amount of naivety which is precisely what some people find intriguing about him. Stanford is just right in the lead role, even if he's clearly older than what he's playing. Neuwirth is irresistible as the saucy older woman (just imagine the trouble the character would be in in real life, though!). John Ritter is good as always playing Oscars' somewhat pretentious dad. And Weaver is appealing as the object of our young hero's misguided affection.One thing that's rather refreshing about "Tadpole" is that it only runs 79 minutes. It's nice to see a modern movie that doesn't meander and wraps up its story in such a trim fashion.Definitely worth seeing for admirers of the cast.Seven out of 10.

moonspinner55 Bebe Neuwirth's performance as a 40-ish chiropractor in New York City who has an affair with a high school sophomore holds the only interest in this ridiculous, inexplicably celebrated independent film shot on digital video. Aaron Stanford plays Oscar, who is described for us as a "40-year-old living inside a 15-year-old's body"; he quotes Voltaire, reveals a fetish for great hands, and harbors a crush on his stepmother, a medical scientist who apparently doesn't notice the moony-eyed look on her stepson's adoring face. "Tadpole" was picked up at Sundance by Miramax, who couldn't market this thing to anyone but the most rabid Sigourney Weaver fans. Weaver does decent work as the object of Stanford's affection, however it is Neuwirth as a sort of updated Mrs. Robinson who steals the show. Otherwise, this is a comedic flirtation with sophisticated manners which is in itself not sophisticated. The clumsy writing spells out everything for us, the characters are all predetermined, and Stanford is singularly without dimension or appeal. * from ****

mgconlan I've just seen "Tadpole" for the second time and I'm astonished at some of the dismissive comments about it on this site. Maybe I'm a bit biased — when I was the protagonist's age I was almost as impossibly pretentious a pseudo-intellectual as he is — but though I don't consider this a great film, I was engaged by it all the way and loved everything about it: the story, the acting, the genuinely witty writing, director Gary Winick's knack for presenting some pretty outrageous situations as if they were perfectly normal and the upper-class New York ambiance in which the whole film was framed. The first time I saw it I called it "sort of a combination of Shaw's 'Candida,' the Phaedra legend and 'Lolita' with the genders reversed," and I stand by that. This time around it was nice to be reminded of how exciting and sensual an actress Bebe Neuwirth could be when all I'm seeing of her these days is the hard-as-nails prosecutor in "Law and Order: Trial by Jury," and John Ritter's performance is one of the ones he should be remembered by even though his presence makes one wonder why the movie wasn't called "Eight Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Son." (Actually Ritter's best big-screen performance ever was as the President of the United States in the woefully underrated satire "Americathon," one movie I'd dearly love to see reissued on DVD.) Just two elements of "Tadpole" that bothered me: how did someone who looked so young get into that bar (I suspect the real Aaron Stanford gets carded all the time!); and why did a pretentious intellectual kid who prided himself on his fluency in French read Voltaire in translation instead of the original?

Claudio Carvalho Oscar Grubman (Aaron Stanford) is a fifteen years old French student, who lives in USA, and spends the Thanksgiving with his father Stanley Grubman (John Ritter) and his stepmother Eve (Sigourney Weaver) in their apartment in New York. His mother is French and lives in France. Oscar is very precocious, cultured, polyglot and loves poetry, and he finds the girls of his age very silly, feeling a great attraction for older women. Oscar has a crush on his stepmother. However, her forty and something years best friend Diane Lodder (Bebe Neuwirth) has an affair with Oscar, and he becomes quite confused with this new situation. "Tadpole" is a reasonable comedy only, having some funny situations, but never reaching a target, having a terrible conclusion. When the viewer finishes watching the film, he will certainly ask: -What is the point? Further, in accordance with the information in IMDb, Aaron Stanford was born in 1977. Therefore, he was completely miscast, being twenty-five years old and pretending he is fifteen. Further, he is not charismatic as his character would require. John Ritter is a reasonable actor, but looks very snob in the role of a history professor of Columbia. Sigourney Weaver is lost, in a character who is neither "Mrs. Robinson" nor an example of a faithful wife. The best parts of the story belong to Bebe Neuwirth, who is amazingly funny and makes the film worth, together with its soundtrack. In summary, "Tadpole" is a forgettable entertainment, recommended for killing time. My vote is six.Title (Brazil): "Um Jovem Sedutor" ("A Young Seducer")