Giant Little Ones is going to end up being a product of its time. On it’s surface, it’s your run of the mill coming of age story for a few teenagers. However, the aging each teen goes through is something more contemporary in its subject matter. I guess Canadian teenagers have progressed more than their American counterparts when it comes to the type of problems they face.
For Franky (Josh Wiggins), life is about to get more complicated very quickly. His girlfriend Priscilla (Hailey Kittle) is excited to give him his “present” at his birthday; however, circumstances lead to that present being given by his best friend Ballas (Darren Mann), VERY unexpectedly. However, that moment confuses both boys, which causes emotional friction between them. Franky, untrustworthy to talk to either his mom (Maria Bello) or his dad (Kyle MacLachlan) about what happened, turns to Ballas’s sister and Franky’s former friend, Tash (Taylor Hickson).
It’s only recently that movies about sexual identity have become mainstream releases. In these releases, there’s still a binary quality to the sexual identity, where if you’re not straight, you must be gay. In real life, I doubt most people would immediately decide one way or another: they would experiment, because gender is more fluid than hard lined. Giant Little Ones refreshingly is the coming of age story through experimentation without defining each of the characters by their sexual orientation. Each of the leads reacts to the experimentation totally differently too, giving us at least 4 fresh storylines where you won’t know how the situation will resolve itself. Giant Little Ones also smartly places these storylines into frameworks we are familiar with to tell an unfamiliar story: boy learns how to relate to dad, main character bonds with social outcast, friends become enemies, and enemies become friends, etc. Giant Little Ones is doing a lot in a short run time, so some stories (the evolution of Franky’s relationship with his dad) are better explored than others (Niamh Wilson’s transgendered character Mouse), but ALL of them are interesting, and some even leave you wanting more.
I knew it was a good sign when Kyle Maclachlan and Maria Bello signed onto Giant Little Ones to play supporting roles. Those two are talented actors who must have trusted Keith Behrman, the Saskatchewan based writer/director’s material, to deliver something really great and meaningful. Side note: you don’t know how hard it is for my juvenile American instincts to make a “Regina” joke right now…