The BFG

Year: 2016
Genre: Fantasy Adventure
Directed: Steven Spielberg
Stars: Mark Rylance, Ruby Barnhill, Penelope Wilton, Jemaine Clement, Rebecca Hall, Rafe Spall, Bill Hader, Olafur Darri Olafsson, Adam Godley, Michael Adamthwaite, Daniel Bacon, Jonathan Holmes, Chris Gibbs, Paul Moniz de Sa
Production: Disney

In the highly adored Spielberg classic E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), the protagonist Elliot lures the titular E.T. into his home using M&Ms. E.T. fumbles about the boy's room; they exchange glances, they mimic each other's movements, they greet each other. The BFG is an attempt to sustain the same sense of wonder Elliot feels when first meeting E.T. only this time replace Elliot with a precocious little girl named Sophie (Barnhill). It's a sense of wonder that courses through the film like the lucid flickers of a waking dream; it's majestic, it's magical and its unabashedly sentimental. Unfortunately, like waking up from a dream, a sudden stumble can really ruin the experience. A tossing turn can end a dream with an unceremonious thud which regretfully happens in The BFG.

So...anyone up for a game of touch football?

The film takes no time in introducing its audience to Sophie and BFG (Big Friendly Giant) played by Mark Rylance in all his motion capture glory. Sophie is whisked away from the orphanage she tolerates to Giant Country where BFG is but the small and abused runt of a litter of giants with names like Bloodbottler (Hader) and Bonecruncher (Bacon). The largest and meanest of them all is Fleshlumpeater (Clement) who is partial to eating children. After avoiding the keen noses of the nine cannibalistic giants, Sophie follows BFG to dream country where the lonely giant bottles dreams and shares them with the sleeping children of the world.

The BFG is based on a children's book of the same name written by Roald Dahl. The film remains highly faithful to the book almost to a fault. It takes a while to really get into the world of The BFG partially because of a near constant injection of whimsy. Thus for the first half-hour we must be guided by a sea of linguistic context clues and Sophie's stubborn pluck. Seriously, these giants sound like Eliza Doolittle had a run-in with Alex and his droogs.

My babblement keeps getting all squiff-squiddled around!

Yet eventually like a seedling, the film grows on you. It replaces its moments of caprice and forced mawkishness with real sentiment. It's coaxed largely by the growing relationship between the child and the giant, one of which has surprising cleverness while the other has a folksy simplicity about him. It is moments like the ones in dream country that are not only a feast for the eyes but provide the very best narrative charge to elevate the art of film itself.

The beauty of The BFG and director Steven Spielberg's entire oeuvre is his ability to world-build. Spielberg doesn't just give you the tour, he envelopes you into a fiction you can almost touch. It certainly helps that he lets his actors interact as much as possible with the intricate details and adorning accouterments. A lesser director would have cut corners, making and updated version of The Devil-Doll (1936) but not Spielberg. Every hoist of the giant's hand, every impish step and every jump into a snozzcumber gives a tactility. A tactility that legitimizes the giant's home, dream country et al. as more than just a studio set.

The film then once again devolves into a cluster of technically impressive but hollow set pieces, syrupy "stand up for yourself" cliches and a third act that gives the phrase deus ex machina a queenly quality. The sustained wonder dissipates under the weight of some unnecessary world mixing. I realize most large events in the film are also in the book but surely we could have gotten the giant eating tiny pieces of toast through some other means. Also by this point, a long percolating joke slides to its punchline just long enough to make the kiddos laugh and grandma get the vapors.

Though it's all for the sake of the children and while I've been a long proponent for improving the state of children's films, The BFG is ultimately far from rubbish. It's certainly no E.T. but the tactile and seamless world-building brings to mind Hook (1991) which wasn't perfect but does still leave a nostalgic residue. The BFG will undoubtedly leave a similar impression of young children who watch it and with a message of hope, acceptance and friendship it's certainly more tolerable than The Care Bears Movie (1985).

Final Grade: C