Customer Reviews

Gigantic

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

What a great little film. An irrational "love" story filled with the single most dysfunctional group of dorks I have ever enjoyed watching. Two obscure performances from Ed Asner and the mute Zach Galifianakis underscore the boldest roles for Zooey and Paul Dano I have seen outside of their mainstream stuff.

It is difficult to explain as I found it hard to classify this a comedy, but the laugh out loud moments of excellent writing were numerous and placed just right. The story follows two young lovers as they traverse their "jobs", un-describable families, and each of their respective dysfunctions. Along the way we are subjected to Galifianakis' homeless stalker, Ed Asner's bizarre dad insight, and a Japanese spa scene that if described, would not allow this review to get posted (do not remember seeing anything like that on film before).

The filming is unique, the 5.1 is decent and picture quality is good. The special features are sparse but contain one of the most relevant deleted/alternate scenes I have watched in some time. Had they edited that 30 second clip into the film (the alternate scene clip), it would have changed the entire premise. The stills gallery is forgettable and a trailer is included. Would have preferred to see more about the brains behind this and maybe a featurette, but the film is an interesting piece on its own. It says R for language, sexual content and violence, but nudity should be in there also for the Zooey/pool scene, albeit from a distance.

Gigantic is another independent romantic-comedy starring Zooey Deschanel. Like other films of this sort that she's starred in, it's not your typical, everything-turns-out-fine, big box-office take romantic-comedy. Instead, it's a subtle, quirky film with whimsical characters that is hardly the first of it's kind, but is still a unique little movie.

Paul Dano (also the executive producer) is a mopey, 28-year-old mattress salesmen named Brian who's in the process of adopting a Chinese baby. One day, Al Lolly (John Goodman), a successful, loud-mouthed man with back problems comes in and buys a mattress. His daughter Happy (Deschanel) comes in to take care of the financial aspects and ends up falling asleep on one of the bed's.

Ed Asner co-stars as Brian's elderly father, while Zach Galifianakis (a recent scene-stealer in The Hangover) plays a mysterious, mute homeless man.

What is instantly striking is the unique characters and the subtle things that make them unique. One character introduces himself with "'sup dude? Not much," everytime he enters a room. There's the bizarre, mute homeless man of course. And how many beautiful, eccentric girls randomly fall asleep in a mattress warehouse? So, yes the character's are unique...But they don't come off as being written in such a way. My impression of the character's was not one of a writer saying "look at my unique characters!" They seem normal, real, just not without their eccentricities.

The acting really brings that quality out. Dano has played every sort of character and his quiet, disconnected Brian is another winning performance. Goodman has played a loud-mouthed, sympathetic character before and few actors are better at it. Finally, although not expanding her acting range much, Deschanel is a charmer...She once again plays a character that's reserved and complicated, but you can see how someone could instantly fall for her.

Gigantic did not blow me away, but it's got many admirable qualities. I enjoyed it's subtle, deadpan humor. It doesn't seem to reach for laughs, but will graciously accept them if the timing is right. Co-writer/director Matt Aselton marks his directorial debut here and he doesn't seem to have totally hit his creative stride yet. There are scenes in Gigantic that feel out-of-place, like Aselton didn't focus on a completely linear story arc. Also, I'm not sure about the necessity of the Galifianakis character.

Gigantic is an ironic title for a film of this scope. It's a simple film about complicated people that simplifies their "gigantic" complications in their otherwise typical, fruitless lives. It's low-key and light-on-it's-feet and although I enjoyed it, I couldn't help but think that it had more potential than it fulfilled. It's not perfect, but a strong debut by a filmmaker who could make something very special in the future.

GRADE: B-

We love Zooey... and yes, she has a knack at playing in movies that are a bit different. But this one was just too different... nothing really went anywhere, it was slow and confusing (why the heck was the homeless guy always trying to beat up the main character? and did the homeless guy magically vanish from the last fight scene?..was he even REAL?) Needed a little more dialogue to fill in the viewers unstead of leaving us clueless... I guess some viewers thought this was a "nice understated quirky movie"... I struggled to get thru it, and was really hoping for something much much better. It had so much potential. I WANTED to like it, I really tried.

"Gigantic" offers a mix of experiences. From the opening credit where the title is in a small font, one knows that this is a film that throws curve balls. One never quite knows what to expect. Paul Dano who was so good in "Little Miss Sunshine" and "There Will Be Blood" also produced. He turns in a subtle performance as Brian Weathersby who sells mattresses and works to secure his life-long dream of becoming an adoptive parent to a Chinese child. A complication arises as he meets Harriet "Happy" Lolly played by Zooey Deschanel. Shopping for a mattress, she falls asleep on the bed. From there a friendship and unusual romance develops. Ed Asner has a nice cameo as Brian's father. Jane Alexander turns in an excellent cameo performance as Brian's mother. John Goodman is blustery and eccentric as Harriet's father. The performances are all first rate. Enjoy!

This film is really a battle of the bizarre fathers: between John Goodman who prefers being chauffeured lying down in the back of a hearse and Ed Asner, a goofily semi-demented back to nature grandfather who has his grown multi-lingual sons over for a hallucinogenic tea party. Goodman and Asner alone are worth the price of the DVD.

The main character played by Paul Dano is a kind of urban, mattress-selling "Lars" of Lars and the Real Girl; you're not sure how much of his reality is real or why, but everyone else seems to take his off axis mental status in stride. Paul plays Brian, a sweet, shy guy who, unaccountably, stays that way after meeting Zoe Deschanel. Zoe, I think, just plays Zoe; quirky, beautiful, messed up by an obliviously cruel mother, and indulged by her hyperrich hypereccentric father (Goodman); she lives in an ADD world where she is unable to keep a job or a boyfriend. She's charming, believably vulnerable and heartfelt.

The movie has an odd and disturbing (well, everything is relative) subplot involving an individual who may be violently stalking Brian, and there is also Brian's apparently lifelong intent (obsession?) to adopt a Chinese baby girl. Zoe may or may not be pregnant by the end of the film, which just ends and drops you on the floor abruptly, as if the filmmaker decided that if attention deficit disorder is good enough for his characters, it's good enough for the film.

So, bottom line, if you like quirky movies, and really good, really eccentric acting, add this to your collection.

I love little quirky films and Zooey Deschanel has become one of my favorite actresses in these off beat romance movies. While I enjoyed 'Gigantic it loses sight of itself in the third act. The performances are very good especially by Goodman and Asner and there is a lot to like about this story, I just didn't think it stood up to other small films of this nature like '500 Days Of Summer'. If your into these types of films it is certainly worth seeing, but don't expect it to be on par with some of the best films of this kind.

Where to start !!!!! An appalling overhyped load of cobblers . I am beginning to think the other reviewers must have watched a different movie to the one I endured. Boring stupid and a total waste of time and talent. You will be lucky to crack a grimace let alone laugh out loud. There is one redeeming feature and that is the luminous beauty of the young female star,Zooey Deschanel. She is a knockout!!!!

For most of its running time, this movie was excellent, but as it wound down, it totally collapsed. It was very nicely low key, but there were a number of plot holes that remained unfilled, in particular the character of Brian, played by Paul Dano(who also "produced" the film). Brian is attacked by a homeless man at least twice, but we have no idea why, and an almost total lack of extras doesn't even give us a commentary track, which might explain what happens. Brian is also shot at by someone, & hit once, but was it the homeless guy, possibly the One-Armed Man, or someone on the Grassy Knoll?
Brian adopts a Chinese baby, and as the film ends, the baby is welcomed into Brian's family, as is Zooey Deschanel's character, Happy/Harriet, and suddenly the film simply ends.
I really enjoyed the film, and the cast did a great job with what they had to work with, until the completely unsatisfying ending. The "ending" ticked me off so badly that I dreamt later that night that myself, Bruce Willis, and a stripper from Portland set off to find out what the heck happened with this movie. Just like in real life, we never found out, and Bruce Willis was REALLY pissed off, as should whoever bankrolled this, & allowed it to be released in this condition.

Any movie that stars both Paul Dano and Zooey Deschanel is bound to contain the word "quirky" in most of its reviews, and "Gigantic" soars so far off the Quirk Meter that it makes "Little Miss Sunshine" look like "The Hurt Locker." The story, about a mattress salesman (Dano) who falls in love with the eccentric daughter (Deschanel) of a tyrannical, blowhard tycoon (John Goodman) contains half a dozen subplots, none of which is believable in the slightest. Nevertheless, the ensemble cast (which includes Edward Asner and Jane Alexander) could not be more ingratiating, and largely because of them "Gigantic" flows along entertainingly despite the general weirdness. However, one subplot almost causes the film to go off the rails altogether: the subplot in which a homeless man (Zach Galifinakis, just before "The Hangover" made him a star) repeatedly and violently attacks Dano's character for no discernible reason. This subplot is a total bummer, particularly in its resolution, and flouts believability all too brazenly. It hurts the film, but fortunately doesn't succeed in killing it. For most of its running time, "Gigantic" is a pleasingly strange movie.

This movie is a winner in the catagory: Leaves you with a Good Feeling.

Although not in the same class as Lost in Translation and Four Friends, these three movies got the same Good Feeling in common.

Dont expect to find a message, dont look for a statement, just enjoy this love story.