The trailer for Gigantic which stars Paul Dano and Zooey Deschanel and writtern and directed by first-timer Matt Aselton has just debuted at Apple after having a rather quiet debut at the Toronto International Film Festival last year. However, judging by a trio of reviews I snagged off the Internet it doesn’t appear like all is lost as only one review appears to be primarily negative while the other two may best be described as passive with a certain audience in mind.
The film centers on a mattress salesman named Brian Weathersby (Dano) who finds his plan to adopt a Chinese baby augmented by the arrival of a young woman, Happy (Deschanel), who comes into his workplace, falls asleep on one of the beds, and starts to affect his life upon waking up. Also starring in the film are John Goodman, Ed Asner, Jane Alexander and Ian Roberts.
Here are a few snippets from the three reviews I mentioned.
Patrick Z McGavin at ScreenDaily
Matt Aselton’s promising first film tells the story of a solitary dreamer, a young man suspended between personal desires and social expectations. A co-production between Mindy Goldberg’s Epoch Films and Christine Vachon’s Killer Films with sales agent Cinetic on board, Gigantic also features a compelling cast which mixes emerging talents (Paul Dano, Zooey Deschanel) with established character performers (John Goodman, Ed Asner, Jane Alexander). This alone will guarantee festival and specialised theatrical play, although international prospects are much less secure.
Robert Koehler at Variety
“Nothing is normal,” one character needlessly reminds us late into director-co-writer Matt Aselton’s “Gigantic,” since, by that time, the film’s disinterest in anything normal has already been loudly and strenuously announced. Smacking of an unearned love and fascination for all things eccentric, Aselton’s debut steadfastly favors gimmicky dialogue exchanges and odd-for-the-hell-of-it scenes over emotional honesty in its telling of a young man’s pull between his first real g.f. and his desire to adopt a child. Tailor-made for the terminally hip, pic will draw urbanite upper-crusters and nobody else.
Kirk Honeycutt at The Hollywood Reporter
Young filmmakers who want to emulate Luis Bunuel, David Lynch and Jean-Luc Godard usually wind up making a movie like “Gigantic.” In fact, they usually wind up making a much worse film, so we can be grateful to a stellar cast and some discipline on the part of Matt Aselton, a commercials director making his feature debut, that “Gigantic” doesn’t go completely overboard. Nevertheless, the film will appeal mostly to festivals and adventurous audiences.
Check out the trailer below. Gigantic hits theaters on April 3.
