Giant Little Ones review: "A contemporary, fluid take on a coming-of-age drama"

Every kid just wants to feel normal.

Giant Little Ones follows Franky (Josh Wiggins), a popular teenage student still reeling from his mother (Maria Bello) and gay father (Kyle MacLachlan). He is also who is part of his school swimming team and best friends with captain Ballas (Darren Mann). As his birthday arrives so does a big party but afterwards he finds Ballas told a big lie about Franky’s behaviour that seems become a social pariah.

Ballas’ troubled sister Natasha (Taylor Hickson) proves to be a good companion in his new isolation, but will Ballas let Franky be happy with his sister?

Giant Little Ones is a real treat. Avoiding the tropes and clichés of a typical "coming out" story, the film is a strong character drama full of heart, tear-jerking moments and sequences of laugh-out-loud comedy.

Josh Wiggins offers a sensitive, empathetic and likeable turn as Franky, crafting a very human young man who the audience is with every step of the way.

Darren Mann has the hardest role as the rather despicable but still understandable Ballas, soaking in his own toxic masculinity. We never get a full handle on his feelings beyond some rather simplistic motivations, but Mann delivers the more understated emotions.

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Maria Bello (right) in Giant Little Ones (BFI)

Hickson is a real scene-stealer as the prickly but sensitive Natasha, while Maria Bello and Kyle MacLachlan craft a great deal of history in a few scenes as Franky’s parents.

In fact, the subplot focusing on Franky’s fractured relationship with his gay father is also very rewarding and enables MacLachlan to get a moving monologue that channels the touching speech from Michael Stuhlbarg in Call Me By Your Name.

Another successful story beat is Franky’s friendship with gender-queer student Mouse, who helps delivers the most laughs in some honest explorations of the body.

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Josh Wiggins (left) and Kyle MacLachlan in Giant Little Ones (BFI)

The answers are simple or easy, but growing up never is.

Directed with dramatic heft and naturalism but with sequences of a more stylistic flare and visually-arresting imagery by Keith Behrman, Giant Little Ones is a thoroughly modern tale of growing up.

Verdict

Giant Little Ones is a contemporary, fluid take on a coming-of-age drama and an original twist on the coming-out story.

Giant Little Ones was shown at the BFI Flare Film Festival 2019, and will be released in UK cinemas later this year.

What is also great about Giant Little Ones is its fluid approach to sexuality and what understanding that many people fail to fit into neat boxes of categorisation. Many of the characters are aching with pain but long to understand each other and themselves just a bit more.