'Gigantic' review

Paul Dano and Zooey Deschanel (Credit: First Independent Pictures)

Mattress salesman Brian (Paul Dano) longs to fulfill his lifelong dream of adopting a Chinese baby. He also works to maintain a new relationship with Happy (Zooey Deschanel), an intriguingly messed up girl who's both disconnected and blunt enough to say things like, "Do you have any interest in having sex with me?" John Goodman co-stars as Happy's father, a wealthy jerk who claims to have beaten cancer by spitting out a tumor—like a loogie.

The buzz: Take everything that's already been mentioned, add a homeless man inexplicably hunting Brian, and director/co-writer Matt Aselton's debut sure sounds like an overdose of contrived indie nonsense. Perhaps Dano, Deschanel and Goodman can find something real (or satirical?) lurking within and keep "Gigantic" out of the dumpster.

The verdict: Aselton doesn't care why these people are the oddballs that they are or about any connection between their personalities, their circumstances and their lives overall. "Gigantic" is just a bunch of strange character traits strung together for no reason other than quirk, and only Goodman makes the slightest impression. See "Adventureland" for an example of how the unusual challenges of overactive, 20-something brains can seem like a portrait of adulthood trying to find its groove, not just a filmmaker scribbling outside the lines.

Did you know? Brian meets a cute scientific researcher studying sexual aggression in gerbils. Consider what, if anything, this could teach us about human behavior.

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