Tagline: When it comes to family and relationships, there are no small surprises.
Brian Weathersby (Paul Dano) is a 28 year-old salesman at a high-end Swedish mattress company. The afterthought child to elderly parents (Ed Asner, Jane Alexander), and the youngest son in a trio of successful brothers, a shady oil man (Ian Roberts), a surgeon (Robert Stanton), Brian is searching for his place in the world. Unfulfilled by his work he spends a good portion of his day pursuing his goal of someday adopting a baby from China.
He gets swept up in a romance with the lovely but misguided Harriet Lolly (Zooey Deschanel) when she comes in to his store one day and falls asleep on one of the beds. To win her over, he must compete with her bear of a father, Al Lolly, (John Goodman) an art-collecting loudmouth with a bad back and deep pockets. “Gigantic” is a funny, surreal love story about the anxiety that comes when two people with crazy families collide unexpectedly and fall for each other.
Gigantic is a 2008 independent comedy film directed by Matt Aselton and starring Paul Dano, Zooey Deschanel, John Goodman, Edward Asner and Jane Alexander. The script, written by Aselton and his college friend Adam Nagata, tells of Brian (Dano), a mattress salesman who wishes to adopt a baby from China, but finds himself sharing his passion, with the quirky, wealthy Harriet (Deschanel) when they meet in his store. The story was based on Aselton’s childhood wish for his parents to adopt a Chinese baby. The film was shot in New York and Connecticut. It had its world premiere at 2008’s Toronto International Film Festival and was released in the United States on April 3, 2009.
About the Production
Matt Aselton said that, as the youngest child in his family, he wanted his parents to adopt a Chinese baby so that he could have a younger sibling; his younger brother did in fact adopt a baby later. He and co-writer Adam Nagata were fascinated by the idea and built the story around Brian’s wanting to adopt a baby. Aselton and Nagata, college friends who both come from literary backgrounds, aimed to write the film as novelistic and surrealist rather than expository.
They wanted to show “those little things that are often found in literature but rarely in film”, such as Brian and his father’s age difference and how it affects their relationship, and Harriet’s walking around in her underpants and how it affects her and Brian’s relationship. Aselton chose the title Gigantic because “There’s an innocence about the [word]” due to its use by young children to describe something fantastic. He felt that the title was “a juxtaposition against Brian’s life changing decision to adopt a baby”.
The script languished for several years before the film went into production, when producer Mindy Goldberg brought the script to Christine Vachon of Killer Films. Aselton said the most challenging part of making the film was casting the two lead roles of Brian and Harriet. Paul Dano liked the script and was one of the first actors to sign on, which attracted others to join the cast. Aselton said that Dano was one of the first to audition for the role and the first to understand the story; Deschanel was the second actor to understand, and so both were cast.
To prepare for his role, Dano talked to salesmen at Sleepy’s, a mattress store, and bought Chinese language tapes to learn some of the language as his character did. Filming began on March 3, 2008 and lasted for 23 days. As a director of commercials, Aselton brought many of his former crew members with him to work on Gigantic. Most of production took place in Brooklyn and Manhattan but several scenes were filmed in Stamford, Connecticut and Los Angeles. Filming locations included Brooklyn Heights’ Cadman Plaza West and Cobble Hill’s Quercy restaurant.
Scenes in the mattress store were filmed inside an abandoned warehouse, which cinematographer Peter Donahue described as “a big space with perfect texture on the walls and windows in the right places for motivated, practical light”. Though the producers wanted to use 16 mm film because of the tight budget, Aselton and Donahue chose to use Super 35 format, mainly using medium-long lenses.
Gigantic (2009)
Directed by: Matt Aselton
Starring: Paul Dano, Zooey Deschanel, Edward Asner, Jane Alexander, John Goodman, Ian Roberts, Robert Stanton, Robert Stanton, Daniel Stewart Sherman, Mary Page Keller, Zach Galifianakis, Susan Misner
Screenplay by: Matt Aselton, Adam Nagata
Production Design by: Rick Butler
Cinematography by: Peter Donahue
Film Editing by: Beatrice Sisul
Costume Design by: Paola Weintraub
Set Decoration by: Mila Khalevich
Art Direction by: Leo Holder
Music by: Roddy Bottum
MPAA Rating: R language, some sexual content and violence.
Distributed by: First Independent Pictures
Release Date: April 3, 2009
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