Gigantic

Thursday September 11

Why oh why must I always end the festival each year with a bad movie? I believe I have somehow been cursed. We had a really good box for the festival this year. We got all of our 1st or 2nd picks. My schedule changed unexpectedly and my poor husband stood in line for over an hour to exchange my Tuesday ticket for this film to a Thursday ticket. It turned out to be a real waste of an hour.

I was looking forward to what sounded like a cute, fun romantic comedy. I left the theatre feeling confused and disappointed. I will explain but first I need to set it up. Brian is a 28 year old who spends his days selling mattresses in a dreary showroom and trying to adopt a baby from China. He meets an odd girl named Happy after selling an expensive mattress to her father. A mutual interest between Brian and Happy quickly follows. Sounds like we are in for a quirky romantic comedy right? Not quite.

There is zero chemistry between these two and they spend most of the movie doing things that don't make any kind of sense. It is not quirky. It is just a series of random nonsensical scenes pieced together. This is the disappointment part. Now on the confusion.

I need to describe something that happen in the movie. I would not normally do this but it is necessary to explain my confusion and really will not give anything away - I wouldn't call this a spoiler. At four points in the movie Brian is confronted and attacked by the same individual. The individual is dressed differently each time. In one scene the man is dressed as if he was homeless. In other scenes he is dressed as a hunter, a regular guy on the street and a construction worker. It doesn't seem to make any sense. Who is this person? Why is he attacking Brian? It is NEVER explained or resolved in any way. The attacks cannot be a figment of Brian's imagination because he comes away from them with wounds that people in the movie comment on. Brian cannot be inflicting the wounds on himself because of their nature. He never tells anyone in the movie that he is being repeatedly attacked. He never involves the police. The police do not get involved when two people stumble on the man and Brian after the final attack scene where Brian is bloody and holding a knife. We know that the people on the street see what has happened because one of them says something like "hey, he has a knife." What the hell is up with this? If anyone has some insight I would love to hear it. The more I think about it the more confused I get.

My final complaint is that people in the theatre clapped when the movie was over. Seriously! No one from the film was present for the screening. No director, no actors. The movie was bad. I don't think that this can be argued. Why are you clapping? It is one thing to be polite but really......