Gigantic

Director: Matt Aselton
Writer: Matt Aselton, Adam Nagata
Cast: Paul Dano, Zooey Deschanel
Theatrical Release Date: April 3, 2009
Distributor: First Independent
On The Web Film Website IMDB Entry

Synopsis: Brian Weathersby (Paul Dano) is a 28 year-old salesman at a high-end Swedish mattress company. The afterthought child to elderly parents (Ed Asner, Jane Alexander), and the youngest son in a trio of successful brothers, a shady oil man (Ian Roberts), a surgeon (Robert Stanton), Brian is searching for his place in the world. Unfulfilled by his work he spends a good portion of his day pursuing his goal of someday adopting a baby from China. He gets swept up in a romance with the lovely but misguided Harriet Lolly (Zooey Deschanel) when she comes in to his store one day and falls asleep on one of the beds. To win her over, he must compete with her bear of a father, Al Lolly, (John Goodman) an art-collecting loudmouth with a bad back and deep pockets. [Synopsis courtesy of official website]

Round-up: "I don't remember ever wanting to just haul out and punch a movie before 'Gigantic,'" Nick Pinkerton writes in his review of Matt Aselton's film for The Village ... Voice. Though Pinkerton's disdain for the film is somewhat more extreme that most critics, the film - which stars Paul Dano and Zooey Deschanel - is finding a generally harsh response from critics. Writes indieWIRE's Michael Koresky: "Two tired, and seemingly opposed, trademarks of recent American independent cinema make for a deadly combination in Matt Aselton’s “Gigantic.” It’s an arch, self-aware puppy-dog love story, shot through with an overly aestheticized, almost clinical detachment. This off-putting hybrid of idiosyncratic romantic comedy and surreal, interiorized character portrait is never able to remotely reconcile its two tendencies: to both ingratiate the audience with its main characters’ sizable quirks and to visually and sentimentally distance us from those same characters. The result is restless yet at the same inert, zigzagging with thematic inconsistencies in its telling of the hesitant romance between dissatisfied 29-year-old mattress salesman Brian Weathersby (Paul Dano) and sprightly-spunky-zombified Harriet “Happy” Lolly (Zooey Deschanel, who’s sort of an expert at this point at sprightly-spunky-zombified young women), who have little more in common than pallid demeanors and pretentiously literate-sounding names." The New York Times' Stephen Holden, though mixed, also finds some positive aspects in the film. "With its off-center dialogue and upscale industrial settings, “Gigantic” strains to be original," he writes. "But beneath its indie affectations it is really another contemplation of generational misunderstanding. Instead of the passionate ’60s and ’70s rebels pursuing authenticity in the material world, or ’80s and ’90s nihilists flamboyantly self-destructing, the movie’s meek lovebirds only want something worth their commitment." One of the film's few out and out raves comes care of The New York Post, where Kyle Smith compares director Aselton's "dry wit" to Hal Ashby: "Quirk fans, prepare to be lightly exhilarated," he exclaims. But with much more positively received films like "Adventureland" and "Sugar" competing also opening this weekend, "Gigantic" could be hurt by the many, many reviewers that don't share Smith's enthusiasm.