Nowadays, even while most children’s features are sophisticated,
high production-value films, as we enter the cinema we grown-ups still usually need
to adjust our expectations a little bit: for stories from a child’s point of
view; for innocent children or anthropomorphic creatures as protagonists; and for
oversimplified, typically binary moral messages. In other words it helps to park
your cynicism at the door, raise up your inner child and let yourself be
carried away. Otherwise, you are likely to be disappointed. *
· To be clear, I’m talking about kids’ movies here, not adult-oriented
animations like, say, Waking Life (2001), Persepolis (2007), Coraline
(2009) or The Wind Rises (2013).
The BFG is somewhat of a rarity: a big budget (est.
$140 million) kids’ movie produced and directed by a major, world class director. Unlike Scorsese’s Hugo (2011), this movie – directed by
Stephen Spielberg and written by the late Melissa Mathison (E.T.: The
Extra-Terrestrial – 1982) - actually feels like it was designed for young kids
to enjoy, even while it packs plenty of pleasures for the rest of us. It’s an
adaptation of a charming book of the same title, from 1982, by the late, great
Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory, James and the Giant Peach, Amazing Mr. Fox). This was one of my
kids’ favorites as they were growing up. Unlike many of Dahl’s children’s
stories The BFG does not feature
evil, abusive adults as villains. Instead, we get evil, child-eating giants. But
the tone is so light and the prose so humorous that the big, bad giants aren’t
so much scary as curiously, comically loutish.
The title character too is a giant, but a smallish one, a mere twenty-five
feet tall, known as “Runt” to his much, much larger brethren. And he’s a
vegetarian.
The giants live in a far off land not found on any maps (since
it - and they - are unknown to humans) called simply “Giant Country.” The big brutes
have names like Fleshlumpeater and Gizzardgulper, and do little but sleep or idly
laze about all day, thinking of the coming night’s feasting. The BFG, though, has
a calling: he spends his days gathering dreams and his nights slipping the nicest
ones into the sleeping minds of English children. It is on one of these nights,
as he is skulking around the streets of her town, that the BFG is spied by precocious
eight year old Sophie, from the window of the orphanage in which she resides. He
kidnaps Sophie to protect the secrecy of the giants, and takes her to his cave
lair in Giant Country.
BFG stands for Big Friendly Giant, for that is what he is,
as Sophie quickly discovers. He is a delightful character, not only because of
a sweet disposition and kindly nature, but because of his unique and charming
patois – a blend of English and fantasy. People are “human beans” to the BFG (and the
other giants). “I just love the way you talk”, says Sophie as she gets to know
him. “How wondercrump!” replies the BFG, beaming. “How whoopsy-splunkers! How absolutely
squiffling! I is all of a stutter.”
Dahl’s writing makes the book a treat to read and gives the
BFG his great charm. Spielberg’s picture borrows the BFG’s wonderful language as much as possible, but it is the actor Mark Rylance who inhabits the character and brings that charm to life. Sure, the BFG is a CGI-generated character, but his face (and thus not only his voice but the entire performance) is effectively that of Rylance - created through the CGI process known asperformance capture. Fresh off his Academy Award winning work playing
the spy Rudolph Abel in Spielberg’s last film, Bridge of Spies (2015),
Rylance is delightfully brilliant again here. Spielberg knows a good thing when
he finds it, and the actor has already been signed to star in the director’s
next two feature films.
Eleven-year-old Ruby Barnhill more than holds her own as Sophie,
presenting her as a clever, spunky, self-assured child with an aplomb well
beyond her years. I suspect we will be seeing more of her in future.
Much credit for the look and feel of The BFG must go to
Production Designer extraordinaire Rick Carter (Jurassic Park -1993, Polar
Express - 2004, Avatar -
2009, Star Wars: The Force Awakens - 2015) and to Spielberg’s long-time cinematographer
Janusz Kaminski (Schindler’s List - 1993, Saving Private Ryan -
1998, Munich - 2005, Lincoln - 2012) At the outset, we experience
the orphanage in which Sophie resides, very much from a child’s point of view;
it’s nighttime – the witching hour – a bright moon floods its blueish light
through the great window of Sophie’s dormitory, casting ominous shadows and
creating a mood that suggests anything can happen. The BFG himself is a
terrific cross between the actor Mark Rylance (as noted above) and the sketchy
illustrations of Quentin Reynolds in Dahl’s book. His great flying leaps, galloping
with Sophie in tow to the land of the giants, are at once magical and
exhilarating. BFG’s cave lair is imaginatively set in a believable mizzen-reality,
akin to our real world yet clearly different, with giant furnishings, gargantuan
snozzcumbers and other unique oddities. The strikingly rendered hilltop realm from
which BFG collects dreams somehow works even while it reverses the laws of
physics. The integration of live action characters with the BFG (and the other
giants) is essentially seamless.
Transferring the story from a slight book into a nearly two
hour visual extravaganza required some modifications, of course. In some
respects, the movie is more thrilling than the book, which is generally a good
thing. The humor is broadened to take advantage of the new visual context, also
a good thing; it’s no longer just the language, the action can get us laughing
on its own. For example, the penultimate
scene, in which the Queen of England (Penelope Wilton), her retinue, and even
her beloved corgis try some of BFG’s delicious fizzy green frobscottle, is just
priceless - in a tastefully tasteless way (and a great improvement over a more
tepid treatment in the book).
I quite enjoyed The BFG, and I suspect you will too,
along with any young’uns you may wish to bring along. I saw it on a pretty big screen and in 3D with
excellent Dolby Digital sound, which was definitely worth it. This is one that I’d
recommend catching in a theater if possible. The movie is rated PG, so you can
use your judgment. Those under seven or eight may be more bewildered than
dazzled, I’d guess.
117 minutes.
In wide release.
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