Tiptoes

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

Reception

Critical reaction to Tiptoes was negative. Based on 7 reviews, the film carries a "rotten" rating of 29% at aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. 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." 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". Oldman's turn was included in BBC critic Mark Kermode's "Great Acting in Bad Films" in 2012.

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".