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Category:    Home > Reviews > Drama > Comedy > Gigantic (2008/Vivendi DVD)

Gigantic (2008/Vivendi DVD)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: C-     Film: C

 

 

Paul Dano is a good actor looking for another good movie and even when he is good, the film often is not.  As Brian Weathersby, the protagonist and mattress salesman in Writer/Director Matt Aselton’s Gigantic (2008), he is the target of violence, ridicule and near clinical depression.  He thinks adopting an infant from China will make him happier, then he meets Harriet Lolly (aka Happy, played by Zooey Deschanel) and comes into his life opening up new possibilities.

 

However, they each have their parents to contend with and her father (John Goodman) is as eccentric as his parents (Jane Alexander and Edward Asner) are showing why the potential couple would be so interested in being with each other.  Yet, there are other misgivings as their tale veers into a direction of uncharted emotional waters for both.

 

Unfortunately, despite a good cast and attempt to do the “ordinary-as-wacky” thing, it is sadly more cliché than adding up to anything honest or that we have not seen before.  I like the leads and the cast is very good too, but Deschanel’s character is underdeveloped and her performance cannot make up for that.  The result is a good idea failing from the inexperience of the makers and a disappointment for a film I had higher hopes for.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image is supposedly shot in 35mm film, but you would not know that from how soft this is throughout, though a digitally over-manipulated Super 35mm edit might be why.  The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is better than the Dolby 2.0 Stereo, but this is dialogue (and mumble) based so don’t expect much form the sound.  Extras are few and include a trailer, stills, alternate scene and deleted scenes that are weak.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


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