IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (K. Jensen) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (M. Zoller Seitz) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review
The BFG [2016] (directed by Steven Spielberg, screenplay by Melissa Mathison based on the children's book [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] by Roald Dahl [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb]) is a truly _excellent_ children's film that many parents / adults may very well enjoy as well.
Further, the reason why many adults may enjoy the film is very nice as well: Unlike many other children's oriented films made these days, it's not as if there's "a second level" in which to understand the film that would be geared more to the adults. INSTEAD, as Matt Zoller Seitz writes in his review of the film for the website RogerEbert.com, the film invites Viewers to re-experience the world through the eyes of a kid.
So the film begins with 8 year old orphan named Sophie (played wonderfully by Ruby Tarnhill) who can't seem to sleep one night. So she's looking out the window of the orphanage in what seems to be 50s era London around three AM and ... to her _enormous surprise_ she spots an "older" 50-60 ft GIANT lumbering down the street.
Now SHE'S scared because though GIANTS _do exist_ in the world of an eight year old, she _didn't_ really expect to run into one. Then from the Giant's perspective (played again very, very nicely by Mark Rylance), he didn't expect to be spotted by her either. Even though he's 50-60 ft tall, he'd only come to London late in the night, and with a very very dark cloak, and a cane that looked kinda like a streetlight, he'd make himself quite invisible to passerbys that encountered (first). THERE'S A VERY, VERY CUTE / ENJOYABLE SEQUENCE in which we, the Viewers, (along with Sophie) watch this 50-60 ft GIANT quite gracefully avoid being spotted by five or six different passerbys. The one thing that this kindly GIANT (what's he doing there? well it turns out that he has a fairly important job to do each night... No, I'm not going to tell you here, but it'd make perfect sense to a 5-10 year old) didn't expect was to be spotted / watched by the eight year old Sophie.
So she's scared and he's scared and he just takes her up then to "Giant Country" where he lives to figure things out. He may be A BIG GIANT, but not a particularly BRIGHT ONE ;-). But if not all that bright, he turns to be remarkably kind. Hence why Sophie comes to call him BFG or "Big Friendly Giant."
Now after Sophie wakes up the next morning up there with her new found friend, BFG, up in Giant Country, she finds that even GIANTS don't have it all that easy. Indeed, there always seems to be "someone" EVEN BIGGER than they are. So Sophie / we find that even the BFG finds himself picked-on by EVEN BIGGER GIANTS than he.
And who then better to help him THAN A KID (and even an ORPHAN KID) who knows a bit about being SMALL and yes, often, LONELY / ALONE ...
This is just a wonderful story folks ... and yes, much, much ensues ... ;-)
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