JULY 5, 2016
“The BFG” is impressive without being inspiring.
Steven Spielberg’s latest is the kind of family-friendly film that he used to create in his sleep, and with his long-time production team and the screenwriter of his masterpiece “E.T.,” the late Melissa Matheson, on board, “The BFG” should have been a home run. At best, it’s a bloop single.
“The BFG” is based on the 1982 novel by Roald Dahl about a young orphan, Sophie (Ruby Barnhill), an insomniac who one night sees a giant wandering the streetsnear her orphanage. Fearing that she will tell others of his presence, the giant plucks the girl from her bedroom and takes her back to Giant Country, where he takes care of her, introducing himself as the BFG — the big friendly giant.
Which much of “The BFG” is live-action, the giant himself is portrayed via motion capture animation by acclaimed theatre actor Mark Rylance, who has won 3 Tony Awards in the last 7 years and nabbed an Academy Award in February for his performance in Spielberg’s “Bridge of Spies.” The collaboration between Rylance and Spielberg in recent years has helped both men, and in “The BFG,” Rylance’s depth of character work gives the film whatever substance it has. Motion capture is a particularly challenging process for an actor to convincingly perform, but Rylance shines here, creating a character who is fearsome to some but who is the object of bullying by his much larger fellow giants in Giant Country.
I know the Dahl book is highly regarded by some (it is reportedly much darker than this film), but as a movie, it feels like a whole lot of effort toward not very much. And even though Spielberg is one of the best director of child actors ever (Cary Guffey in “Close Encounters,” Henry Thomas & Drew Barrymore in “E.T.” and Christian Bale in “Empire of the Sun,” just to name a few), the actor has to be able to bring it, and, for me, Ruby Barnhill just doesn’t, and that keeps us from having a window into Sophie’s world.
Fortunately, there are enough expert adult actors to keep us engaged, particularly in a third-act twist that involves Buckingham Palace and Queen Elizabeth II (Penelope Wilton of “Downton Abbey”), as well as her two aides (Rebecca Hall and Rafe Spall), whose interactions with Rylance’s giant are wonderful.
Still, I think what’s missing for me in “The BFG” that I have so associated with Spielberg’s best work is a sense of wonder. Yes the technical details in the film are expert, but I’m talking about moments in which Spielberg opens your eyes to a whole new world — when the spaceship opens up in “Close Encounters,” the first interactions between humans and E.T. and the presence of the girl in the red coat in “Schindler’s List.”
Those moments were illuminative of Steven Spielberg, the artist. The expert motion capture in “The BFG” demonstrates Steven Spielberg, the craftsman.
I just wish there was more of Spielberg the artist behind the camera of “The BFG.”
GRADE: C+
