**/****
starring Paul Dano, Zooey Deschanel, Ed Asner, Jane Alexander
screenplay by Adam Nagata & Matt Aselton
directed by Matt Aselton
by Bill Chambers Gigantic is littered with dead and loose ends, which wouldn't be a big deal if this were the quasi-freeform jazz of a Cassavetes or even an Apatow wannabe, but is a considerable problem when taking into account the crispness of the film's aesthetics. The clean 'scope compositions and fat-free performances become increasingly incongruous; by the time the movie stops short with everything and nothing resolved, you're convinced the filmmakers snatched a script out of the oven half-cooked after a window of opportunity opened up, not-unreasonably convinced that their cinematic faculties would see them through. Co-producer Paul Dano, suddenly charismatic and borderline handsome (going toe-to-toe with Daniel Day-Lewis evidently did wonders for him), is Brian, a single, 28-year-old mattress salesman who inexplicably dreams of adopting a Chinese baby to raise alone if need be; Zooey Deschanel, in a mesmerizing, career-best turn, is a spacey, baby-voiced sexpot named Happy; and a finally-funny-again John Goodman is Happy's crass millionaire father, whose need for a bed brings Brian into contact with his daughter. Fundamentally, Gigantic is about two lonely people coming together, and there's promise in how it inverts the Knocked Up formula by making Brian the expectant parent and Happy a maturity-deprived bachelorette. But there are just too many pointless, writerly indulgences–including a derelict (Zach Galifianakis) seemingly manifested from Brian's subconscious who shows up to terrorize him at regular intervals, and a scene set in a massage parlour I can't see surviving the channels of distribution except as a DVD supplement–cluttering up the narrative. Gigantic? More like "bloated." PROGRAMME: Discovery
