After a few tries on the big screen, Zooey Deschanel returns to what she is best at: loveable, ethereal indie roles. We’ll forgive her for leaving.
The very premise of the film is intriguing enough to take a second look, even before the great cast. Paul Dano is the lead character, Brian, who sells mattresses by day and dreams of adopting a Chinese baby by night. As if that weren’t enough, he meets the adorable Happy (Deschanel) when she comes in to pick up a mattress for her father and ends up falling asleep on it.
Writer Matt Aselton Knows How to Craft a Love Story
Gigantic has elements that so many romances are missing these days. It features a little bit of the awkward crush stage, some hopeful longing, and some silence. Deschanel is at her most endearing here, and Dano his most sincere, but they cannot take full credit. The script is honest and feels human enough to be beautiful.
He has also managed to avoid almost any trace of sappy, overly sentimental scenes. There is more than enough comedy to keep things interesting and light, and never once does weak writing force the actors to delve into cliché.
Who Is Paul Dano, Again?
Many people remember Paul Dano from the Oscar-winning Little Miss Sunshine, when he played the silent Nietsche-dedicated son. He also played supporting characters in the smaller titles, Girl Next Door and The Ballad of Jack and Rose. He landed another Oscar-winning film with There Will Be Blood, when he played opposite Daniel Day-Lewis. This was an impressive performance from Dano, whose character was a hellfire breathing preacher, with quite the complicated back story.
His performance in Gigantic is much quieter, but no less affecting. He plays the victim for much of the film, not only to Happy’s unpredictable ways, but also through a series of physical assaults from a homeless man. This rather odd side story is one of the more uneven parts of the movie, and should perhaps not have made it through the editing process.
John Goodman in a Hilarious Supporting Role
Goodman plays Happy’s father, the one who meets Brian first when he buys a mattress from him. He is loud (of course), caustic and has continual back trouble which causes his to be literally lying down on the floor for most of his scenes. Goodman is the perfect addition to this movie, and his humor mixes well with Deschanel’s.
Kay Szydlowski - I have been a writer for as long as I can remember. I write a little bit of everything, but my nonfiction tends to center around film, ...
