Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. There's a thing that happens when a film critic becomes a parent. They start getting weirdly sensitive about things that didn't bother them before and they also start finding themselves less cynical about kids movies in general. I've seen it happen to many critic friends in the 20 years I've been doing this.
If you've been following my writing over the last couple years you'll note that I've been bonding quite a bit with my nephews. The older boy in particular has been my regular movie buddy and some of my favorite movie-going moments in recent memory have been watching his reaction to certain films, whether it's Abbott & Costello or American Werewolf In London.
I'm not a full blown parent yet, so I can still get a kick out of dark stories with kiddos in danger, but I must acknowledge that I've seen how my enjoyment of movies, old and new, have been directly tied to how engaged or disinterested Rocco and Max have been while watching with them. It's made watching old favorites fresh again and new movies even that much more exciting when they're pumped for it.
The reason for the preamble is because I want to tell you guys how much I adored Steven Spielberg's THE BFG, but I also need to make sure you understand my mindset while watching it.
THE BFG wasn't a big deal for me as a kid. I didn't read the book and I didn't watch the original cartoon movie. Of course Roald Dahl was all over my youth. WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY inspired me to read the original Dahl books surrounding the Wonka characters and at school we read JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH, but for whatever reason THE BFG eluded me, so I went into the movie about as fresh as fresh could be.
Not so much the same story with Rocco, who was pretty much in hog heaven going into a movie knowing more about it than his know-it-all uncle for once. He just wrapped up 3rd Grade and they both read the book and watched the cartoon in school, so he was primed and ready. That excitement is absolutely contagious and he was probably feeding off my excitement at just watching the new Spielberg, so by the time the Disney Logo started rolling we were both all smiles.
Obviously I can't say how anybody else will react, but I can't imagine this movie being anything less than a revelation for the young or young at heart. It's pure wonder and imagination wrapped up in a tale so innocently filled with childlike logic that you can't help but be charmed by it.
I loved how little Spielberg cared about conventional kidss movie storytelling and jumped right into the weirdness of Dahl's world. He didn't need to explain the time period or geography of England and the Giant's land or just how or why we never found their home. Instead he simply introduces us to Sophie (Ruby Barnhill) and lets us invest in this new young discovery.
The entrance point of this story is the bond between two lonely souls, one an orphan girl and the other an ancient supernatural being who talks funny and loves to blast ass every night. The BFG is soft-hearted, a bit cowardly, but is every bit the dream weaver Wonka pontificated about in his factory. Literally. His joy comes from collecting etherial dream fragments, mixing them up into stories and giving them to those humans in need.
Sophie was abandoned, but proves to be a balance of both adult-like responsibility and child-like stubbornness. She's a forceful personality, tougher than she appears, but a kind soul through and through.
While BFG might be all digital, so much of Mark Rylance's face is used for the character that his performance capture really feels like digital makeup. I see his eyes when I look at the character. Rylance was fantastic in Bridge of Spies, but watching this movie I see fully why Spielberg is holding onto him tightly.
The jumbled speech of the giants could come off as broadly stupid, but the way Rylance butchers the English language instead has a charming, lighthearted quality. He's so purely good that he comes off as childlike, not stupid, when getting words wrong.
It's a fun dynamic since that puts Sophie in the adult position for much of their interaction. She's braver than the giant, but her bravery comes from idealism and his cowardice from personal trauma. It's not just that he's been picked on by the other, much bigger, giants. He's lost friends before and feels responsible for it.
There's real tragedy lightly buried beneath the surface of this movie, which gives it an edge that I wasn't expecting.
What's so beautiful is that Spielberg is such a master at tonal shifts that this movie goes from whimsical to sad to happy to scary to goofy without being jarring. He's helped greatly by two insanely charismatic leads, but I think the real testament to Spielberg's talent is in how this film feels as cohesive as it does considering how silly things get.
And they do get silly. That child-logic I mentioned earlier is no more apparent than when Sophie decides to solicit the help of The Queen of England because who else could help out when some giants are being bullies? The leader of the country, of course! That leads to my favorite sequence of the movie, which also happened to be Rocco's favorite. He knew it was coming and it seemed to have far surpassed his expectations because he was laughing his little ass off throughout it.
Would I have responded so well to this movie if a little dude I care deeply about wasn't losing his shit for it the whole time? There's no way I can tell you with full certainty, but I do know I would have still been Team BFG.
My only real complaint about the film was that the finale seemed to come and go with little fanfare. The whole movie is pointed at the BFG standing up to the asshole giants. As a character that's his whole arc and Sophie's gift to him. The final act is all about the build up to that confrontation and when it arrives it feels like 5 minutes was cut from it. There was no excitement to it, really. It just happens and everybody is happy ever after.
I get that there's a delicate balance of making it too intense for the kiddos, but I think there could have been a little more thrill involved, which Spielberg is so damn good at constructing. Think about the truck scene in Raiders or the many layers of the T-Rex paddock scene in Jurassic Park. What's there in BFG is good and satisfying, but it felt too simple, like if Indy had taken the truck carrying the Ark on his first attempt.
But that's about all I have issue with in the movie. Everything else abides by its own logic and rules. It's a sweet movie with very well-rounded characters you care about immediately. You can feel the master's touch behind the camera at all times and what we're left with is a beautiful final collaboration between Melissa Mathison and Steven Spielberg which has just the right amounts of whimsy, melancholy and wonder.
I have a feeling time will be kinder to this movie than some think at the moment. It's not just a movie that is fine for kids, which I've seen some write it off as. It's a genuinely good-hearted tale told by one of our best living filmmakers.
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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