Giant Little Ones

Written and directed by Keith Behrman, Giant Little Ones follows Josh Wiggins’ affable Franky as he undergoes a journey of self-discovery and learns a series of valuable life lessons over the course of a few eventful weeks. There’s little doubt that Giant Little Ones improves substantially as it progresses, as the film initially comes off as a rather generic coming-of-age tale that continuously treads often excessively familiar territory – with the less-than-captivating atmosphere compounded by a frustratingly deliberate pace and an absence of compelling periphery characters. (Wiggins is quite good here, certainly, but he’s not strong enough to carry the entire thing on his slender shoulders.) The aimlessness hard-wired into Behrman’s screenplay paves the way for a decidedly tedious midsection, and it’s clear that the picture doesn’t begin to improve until certain revelations make their way to the forefront – with the newfound escalating nature of the narrative ensuring that Giant Little Ones‘ latter half is much more compelling and engaging than one might’ve anticipated. The end result is a perpetually erratic yet ultimately rewarding character study that could’ve benefited from a bit more focus, with Behrman’s strong eye for visuals and Wiggins’ consistently impressive performance carrying the picture through its more overtly ineffective stretches.

**1/2 out of ****