Okay, so I could be hypercritical of Gigantic, but not today. It’s not gigantic, though. It’s a small, quiet, quirky, and somewhat campy indie movie with two wonderful stars. Here’s your “plot”: Paul Dano plays Brian Weathersby, a mattress salesman, and the youngest of three brothers. Zooey Deschanel is Harriet (Happy), daughter of Al Lolly (a real pleasure to watch John Goodman in this role), who has just bought a $14,000 mattress. Happy comes up to the trippy “showroom” to arrange a delivery of the mattress, and one thing leads to another. When Brian is not selling mattresses, he’s trying to adopt a Chinese baby, and visiting his weird friend in a rat laboratory. Happy is just trying to “find” herself, and help her dad who has chronic back pain. (His visit to the back specialist did have me laughing out loud). Brian is also very tied to his dad played by Ed Asner, and mom played by Jane Alexander. So we now have two familiarly dysfunctional families. Plus the homeless guy who shows up periodically to try to harm Brian. And lots of other random characters with funny bits of dialogue. Much quirkiness. Gigantic borrows from The Royal Tenenbaums and Repo Man (don’t get excited-it’s not really as good as either of these), with a little bit of the existential thrown in for flavor.
I have loved Paul Dano since L.I.E., one of my favorite dark teen movies, and certainly appreciated his turn as the mute brother in Little Miss Sunshine. Not to mention all he added to There Will Be Blood. And as long as you’re still reading, I have to plug The King, a little sleeper with Dano alongside the starring Gael Garcia Bernal.
Further, I would absolutely lie down on train tracks for Zooey Deschanel. She is an awesome young actor, but especially in All the Real Girls and Winter Passing. So how come it doesn’t come together in Gigantic? Probably due to the lack of character development, and also the lack of chemistry between these two main actors. Whereas Dano’s understated acting has worked for him in previous films, his performance here is almost inert. Too bad, too, because Dano was an executive producer on the film, and obviously took lots of his dough from his big money-makers and invested it in this project. There are many, many cool moments in the movie, but that’s just it: they are moments or instances that exist mostly in isolation and never really come together for a cohesive whole.
Despite its flaws, I liked it. The quirky indie picaresque is a preferred movie category for me, and I forgave it its sins. – [DVD]
Comedy/Romance
Rated R
DVD Release Date: 8/11/09