Giant Little Ones ***½ (2018, Josh Wiggins, Darren Mann, Taylor Hickson, Maria Bello, Kyle MacLachlan) – Classic Movie Review 12,422

The appealing, thoughtful 2018 Canadian coming of age drama film Giant Little Ones stars Josh Wiggins as Franky, who gets intimate with his best buddy Ballas (Darren Mann) and finds he is not the friend has always thought he was.

Writer-director Keith Behrman’s appealing, thoughtful and endearing 2018 Canadian coming of age story drama film Giant Little Ones stars Josh Wiggins, Darren Mann, Taylor Hickson, Maria Bello and Kyle MacLachlan. It explores the complexities of sexual identity.

A friendship is tested and found wanting. An unbreakable bond is broken. There is a big upset in sweet-looking suburban Canada, where upset doesn’t even look possible. After lots of lies are told, the truth is finally out.

Franky and Ballas are two popular Canadian teenage boys, best friends since childhood. But they find their comfortable lives, and those of their families and girlfriends are upended after something unexpected occurs between them on the night of the 17th birthday party of Franky (Josh Wiggins).

His so-called friend Ballas (Darren Mann) is not the friend Franky has always thought he was. Ballas is in denial and tries to lie his way out of it, involving their classmates and swim team buddies. After the party and while drunk, the two boys share a sexual experience. Terrified his actions have outed him, Ballas and his girlfriend Jess (Kiana Madeira) spread lying rumours that Franky performed unwanted oral sex while Ballas was sleeping.

The warm and commendable Giant Little Ones (2018) proposes a fluid sexuality, and the idea that happiness comes from an acceptance, or better still an embracing, of this. And the film fights powerfully against labelling people. Warm-hearted it might be, but is still has some edge and power – and especially intelligence.

American actor Josh Wiggins (born November 2, 1998).

American actor Josh Wiggins (born November 2, 1998) is great as Franky, another nice kid who is sorely tested by life’s unfair slings and arrows, but has the strength to survive and come through. He starts as one of the school’s cutest, most popular and desired boys. But all that changes that night of his 17th birthday party and its aftermath. At one point he becomes the most despised kid in the fairly homophobic school, though he is actually the coolest. And that is his final persona in the school, family, circle of friends and neighbourhood.

It all focuses on Franky, and Josh Wiggins’s valiant, charismatic star turn, but there are nice roles for the women too, Maria Bello as his troubled mom, Niamh Wilson as his brash confidante Mouse, and Taylor Hickson as Ballas’s fragile sister, with whom Franky starts up a relationship, plus Kyle MacLachlan as Franky’s dad, who has left a now rather bitter mom for happiness with another man. MacLachlan’s role isn’t entirely satisfying, and he must be wondering how come he doesn’t have more to do, or better work, but he does have a couple of good scenes towards the end with Franky, and the character is an excellent role model.

There are lots of issues in the film, but it doesn’t feel issue-led or contrived, as the issues all raised without strain through the credible drama, and no solutions are offered. How can there be? Though maybe a little gentle, comforting advice comes through. And that is just fine. Adolescence is a minefield and Giant Little Ones tiptoes gently and sweetly – but purposefully – through it. It creates a resonant little world of its own, particular but universal. It’s perhaps a surprise to find so much homophobia in nice Canada, and among young people too, but of course that is universal too, and homophobia must be rife in suburban towns everywhere.

There’s a great soundtrack and lively photography too.

The film was shot in 2017 in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. It premiered on September 9 at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and was released in the US on 1 March 2019.

In December 2018, TIFF added the film on its annual Canada’s Top Ten list. Behrman won the Vancouver Film Critics Circle award for Best Screenplay for a Canadian Film.

Kyle MacLachlan enjoyed working in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, saying: ‘It was beautiful. It reminded me, kind of weirdly enough, a little bit of my hometown which is in eastern Washington.’

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,422

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