Gigante

A charming story in a not so interesting film that has been collecting honors at 2009 Berlinale and 2009 San Sebastian fest. With all the major awards I was really looking forward to watch the movie and enjoy it, but didn’t happened as I found actors performances too forced and not conveying emotions at many times, the pace way too slow (and remember that I LOVE slow paced movies), not many visually interesting scenes and a director that still have to improve (a lot) his filmmaker skills as this great story deserved a better filmmaker and storyteller.

Yes the story is a really charming one-way falling-in-love story with nice feel good comedy and a happy ending that will please many. The story tells about Jara a heavyset supermarket security ward on the nightshift that slowly develops a “crush” for Julia, a night cleaning lady. The twist is that 30ish Jara is a BIG baby that totally behaves like a young kid, much like his twelve year-old nephew, so his “crush” is stalker-obsessive but totally harmless.

As a matter of fact the scenes that really annoyed me were the ones were the director tried once, twice and many more times to show that Jara was a harmless big kid in a grown-up man's body. I got it the first time. There was no need to constantly show that Jara was not a stalker and that his “crush” was a “puppy” love.

The only reason I watched until the end was because I wanted to know how the story ended and if it wasn’t for the story I would have stopped watching the film. Hmm, this talks about the power of an idea, but also tells about how the other variables in film-making are as important as the story idea.

I cannot recommend this movie.

Sigh.

Watch trailer @ Movie On Companion