by Peter Callaghan
The delights of reading like that of alcohol came late to me in life. But as the modern day marketeers behind Arthur Guinness’s vintage stout wisely put it: Good things come to those who wait. In place of a shelf full of children’s classics such as Robert Louis Stevenson’s swashbuckling Treasure Island or J.M. Barrie’s awfully big adventure Peter Pan were the rent and the tick books – the latter used to fund the former! But rather than wallow in Pythonesque “We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip”-isms, my ignorance of and late introduction to Roald Dahl’s The BFG has two positives: I am spared the tedium of engaging in “the book was better than the film” debates; and the fantastical characters, unexpected plot twists and satisying ending are as enjoyable as my first sip of “the black stuff”.
Four scenes stand out. The first, the captivating almost wordless opening which culminates in a comical game of cat and mouse as Mark Rylance’s Big Friendly Giant transforms into a number of disguises including a towering tree and the bulging cargo of a heavy goods vehicle in a frantic attempt to avoid being seen by the beady eyes of “beans” (giant-speak for human beings); the second, a beautiful sequence in The Land of Dreams where Ruby Barnhill’s Sophie joins the BFG in jumping into a pool of starlight where they can hear “all the secret whisperings of the world” to lock up “troggle humpers” (nightmares) and capture “golden fizz whizzers” (good dreams) in the hope of blowing them into the sleepy heads of children and turning their frowns into smiles.
The third, and most laugh-out-loud scene of all, is when a refined early morning meal with Penelope Wilton’s Queen Elizabeth II literally explodes into a dog’s breakfast when a generous slug of the BFG’s fart-inducing frobscottle (a green-coloured fizzy drink where the bubbles go down instead of up) sends a pack of corgi’s charging along the red carpet like Cameron’s cronies scrambling for a gong and calls upon all the queen’s horses and all the queen’s men for Her Madge to retain her stiff upper lip when a jolt from her garters sends a tremor down her posh pinky.
And the fourth scene worthy of singling out for attention in the late Melissa Mathison‘s final screenplay is the closing shot of the film in which the camera zooms in on the contended face of the BFG who is happy in the knowledge that Sophie’s dream of “make them all happy” has been fulfilled – a sentiment shared by the appreciative audience at the screening I attended who judging by their favourable comments in the foyer left the cinema feeling just as good as I did after downing my first pint of Arthur’s: scrumdiddlyumptious!
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Because the movie had Spielberg’s name attached to the project, I think people were expected to be “blown away” by the movie. To me, I actually liked it. Rylance was excellent as The BFG and so was Barnhill as Sophie. The visuals were impressive and the other giants look great (at least they look like more human-like than the cartoon version). All in all, while not as dark as Dahl’s other adaptations, The BFG was entertaining to watch.