![]() ![]() A lot of actors that you see in the credits – don’t appear until the third act. The third act of The BFG, which I won’t spoil, is very different. This is all very grim, but it’s also largely avoided. I say “presumably” because it’s never disclosed what has happened to these children, but it’s a) established that these giants will eat humans and b) there’s no daring rescue of all the missing children. And these are the scoundrels – led by Jemaine Clement’s The Fleshlumpeater – who have been kidnapping children and presumably eating them. There are bigger giants who all pick on The BFG. It’s all very strange, but in a Spielberg-ian nice way. He then travels the streets of London, dispensing these dreams to unsuspecting sleepers. We learn that The BFG collects dreams that he keeps in jars. It’s not dull – Spielberg is the master of creating a world of wonder, even if we are just kind of looking around at it for a longer than you’d expect – but it’s not terribly exciting either. Not a lot happens for the first half of this movie. Sophie, who tends to defy authority and suffers from insomnia, of course breaks this rule and soon finds herself in the hands of a giant that she eventually nicknames The BFG, short for “The Big Friendly Giant.” Young Sophie (Ruby Barnhill) is a London orphan who has been given strict instructions not to look out the window at night because little children have started disappearing. Here he’s played by Mark Rylance, who is wonderful I can only guess Robin Williams’ performance would be much different. The BFG feels like one of Robin Williams’ warm and cuddly movies, which, right now, kind of hits the right spot. This film is based on Roald Dahl’s 1982 children’s book and it doesn’t surprise me that Robin Williams was originally attached for the title role in an earlier incarnation of the project. By the time The BFG farts green smoke, well, yeah, that held my interest. And The BFG mostly accomplishes what it sets out to do. I mean, this is Steven Spielberg, he knows what he’s doing. And we need escapism sometimes, but maybe not this often.Īnyway, let’s cut to the chase: Does The BFG work as a piece of escapism? Was my mind free of daily worries and was I transported to a magical world of giants? Eh, mostly. And then how can I possibly care about writing about something like The BFG? Oh, yes, escapism! That’s my entry point. (And, to be honest probably before that.) Far too often, these days, I feel this way: Just sad about everything happening and feeling helpless to do anything, no matter how angry we all get, about the easy access to assault rifles - or sad about a whole host of other things. Then I remembered I had written that piece before. It’s good just to be transported somewhere else just to get your mind off being sad, at least for a couple of hours. There are a little over 300 words I just deleted from my original draft of this review (or essay, or collection of trash fire words, or whatever you want to call it) of The BFG because I found myself lamenting about how movies are important in times of strife. ![]()
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