Gigantic

Brian Weathersby (Paul Dano) sells insanely high price mattresses in NYC. It's an indie of his life with all kinds of random quirky characters. Happy Lolly (Zooey Deschanel) is the daughter of Al (John Goodman) who purchased a mattress for $14k. He wants to adopt a Chinese baby. She's flaky. They hit it off.

This is filled with great actors I love. They seem to be doing good work. I should like this, but the story is a series of meandering scenes that drives aimlessly. They crawl along without any sense of drama. It's a battle of the quirky characters, and nobody really wins in this.

The main protagonist of 'Gigantic' is twenty-eight year old Brian - a morose, monosyllabic mattress salesman. Some jaded film-goers might feel they've watched Brian's charisma-free loner cousins overplaying their quirkiness in far too many Indie projects. In 'Gigantic' Brian possesses the stubborn ambition to adopt a Chinese baby - a plot contrivance designed to distract from his stupefying dullness. Despite being single, earning little money and suffering from violent hallucinations, an irresponsible adoption agency is helping him achieve his goal.

The story begins when Al Lolly, an overweight businessman with chronic back problems, visits the warehouse where Brian is employed. Big Al purchases a mattress and later sends his beautiful daughter to settle the bill. When Happy Lolly arrives, she asks Brian to help transport her father to a chiropractic appointment, and while they await its conclusion, Happy invites Brian to have sex with her. He doggedly obliges in an underground car park - but their romance doesn't amount to much. Happy immediately expresses her own quirkiness with feeble attempts to escape the relationship, while Brian continues to obsess about Chinese babies. Like it or leave it - that's how love is in Indie-World.

The film's script is a strange beast - the main story is the lovers' moth-eaten love affair, but the sub-plots contain some offbeat black humor, providing John Goodman, Ed Asner, Jane Alexander, Clarke Peters and Zooey Deschanel with opportunities to create some original characters. Somehow, mysteriously, their combined talents manage to keep 'Gigantic' afloat while Paul Dano impersonates a sack of potatoes in the central role.

This decent faux-indie film is ruined by pro-capitalist & anti-poor propaganda. Some of which is implicit (even subliminal) & some of which is overtly explicit.

Firstly, one message of this film seems to be that capitalism is good, in fact it gets you laid. Secondly, another message is that homeless & working people are bad, they attack you in the street for no reason! This is evidenced in one scene where the guy says to the other that he got laid with a girl who's father bought a mattress from him & the other guy's reply is "God bless capitalism". To me, a blatant association of our elitist political system with sex.

At certain points in the film the lead is attacked by someone whom he describes as a homeless guy, but is at times dressed as a worker. Whether the guy is a figment of the lead's imagination or not, the negative subliminal association of poor/working person & uninitiated violence is made.

Later, they crack open a piñata & he says he has them made to look like dictators. Now it's very easy to point at the crimes of others. Why didn't he have some evil American politicians made like Nixon or Kissinger (who helped killed 5 million+ in Vietnam, Cambodia & Laos) or some figures of British Imperialism (who killed just as many as Stalin)? No, only non-capitalist murderers are worthy of our attention & that is the type of blatant propaganda you expect from Hollywood Blockbusters.

Where is the anti-consumerist, anti-materialist, anti-elitist & anti-status quo message I expect from productions with a supposedly individualistic non-conformist perspective?

I'm surprised at the so many negative reviews that Matt Aselton's 'Gigantic' received, as I found it to be quite a charming, funny, absorbing and well-made little film. I suppose not everyone appreciates subtle storytelling and that much of 'Gigantic' is open to interpretation (for example the homeless man, whom I interpreted as Brian's alter-ego).

The quirky premise may appear a little awkward on the surface. I can see why some people interpret it as 'a cry for attention' but the film does not dwell on that. It's very story oriented and focuses on issues such as family relationships and growing up. The characters are quirky but easy to identify with. The sharp dialogues are wonderful and funny.

'Gigantic' is a well made film. The soundtrack and cinematography are a good fit. Soundtrack itself is worth a buy. The art direction is toned down. Aselton tones down the colour to give it a cold look as the warmth is expressed in the interactions of the characters. The lighting is used efficiently.

The cast has done a commendable job. Even though many have disliked Paul Dano's performance (most of them commenting that he wasn't quirky enough), I felt quite the contrary. He downplays the part very well. Zooey Deschanel is nothing short of excellent. Even though she has played similar characters before, her approach to playing Happy is very different. John Goodman, Ed Asner and Jane Alexander and Zack Galifianakis are great.

Aselton's debut is a fun and absorbing watch and it lingers in mind long after the end credits have rolled....though perhaps it's not for everyone given the negativity, but so what. For me it was worth the chance.

The fashionable movies these days rely on finding an edge in convention and dangling a foot in the unknown waters on the other side. Wes Anderson and Jason Reitman and Judd Apatow are practitioners of this dynamic. The strategy is plain, with the skill coming from the balancing act.

So far, those three have done nothing but take a stable genre and story form and walk it to its edge. There is amusement along the way. I like these. But they don't go deep. They are afraid to hurt. We've had a few years of this now and already the technique has become the default in the least valuable of films: romantic comedies.

What we need is someone who knows how to find that edge and go to it. Someone who doesn't just dip a toe, but who jumps back and forth fearlessly carrying back insight. We need more Igby from the other side, but brought back.

This young filmmaker is just what I hoped for. The filmmaking is assured. The arcs are broken as intended. It suitably confuses the newspaper critics. It hurts in places.

I won't fall into the trap of summarizing what is shown, because what matters is what is not shown. Its the empty spaces in the narrative.

Why is someone familiar beating up our hero? Who is this endearing, broken soul that Zooey plays? What role does that gay guy play, the guy we meet at the beginning and never see again? What are those lines that seduce, are never said, but are remarked on as if they need not be?

There is a fold here: the sister runs a TeeVee shopping show; Zooey's character helps in an unknown way. In keeping with the gaps, we never know where the fold goes. There is a device from a standard romantic comedy: having a child. It happens but we have no idea how to register it against out romcom templates.

Some may think these are signs of a broken movie or an immature writer-director. They seem to me to be effective, deliberately engineered gaps that define an unknown, moving edge we are taken to and baptized in the open ignorance we bring.

Zooey really does understand what is going on. She's the perfect actor for this experiment.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.