Magic woven out of Dahl’s ‘The BFG’
Print Edition
THERE’S a secret about children that Steven Spielberg, Melissa Mathison and Roald Dahl have always known — that no matter how innocent, kids are as capable of understanding darkness as adults, and sometimes even more so. It’s not that it’s some completely unacknowledged truth, but it is one that rarely seems to permeate what we consider “children’s entertainment” in any real way. It just makes adults too uncomfortable. It’s also the reason why the under-10 set flocks to Dahl.
A measured embrace of the deep menace in Dahl’s words is why this long-time-coming adaptation of his 1982 book “The BFG “ not only succeeds, but shines.
It’s not just some pleasant romp into the world of giants. It’s an honest-to-goodness, gut punch of a journey, crackling with heart, uncertainty, and overflowing with all-out wonder. There’s really no other way to tell a story about an orphan who is captured by a giant and taken to a land crawling with much larger giants who like the taste of human beings, or “beens” as they’re called.
The orphan, Sophie, is played by the newcomer Ruby Barnhill. Sporting a Dorothy Hamill haircut and rounded glasses, this little brunette moppet is a delightful revelation who is at turns feisty, lovable and even a little annoying (in a good way). In other words, she’s a believable kid — a result that Spielberg has been coaxing out of child actors since “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.”
Thankfully, Sophie has been taken not by man-eaters, but the Big Friendly Giant (Mark Rylance), who prefers to create dreams for the children of England, not snack on them. But Sophie, who lays awake night after night, saw him gliding through the streets of London and she can’t be trusted with the knowledge that giants really do exist, no matter how pure her intentions.
Back in Giant Country, things don’t get off to a great start between Sophie and the BFG either.
Rylance’s BFG is an astonishing meld of real life and CG animation. It’s jarring at first but kids won’t mind, and adults will grow accustomed to it. Thankfully, it somehow stays clear of the uncanny valley. It fits in the context and look of this storybook world, which truly does feel like the page come to life.
There’s a melancholy hanging over the film, too — that it’s Mathison’s final screenwriting credit. She died last November of cancer at age 65.
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