''Giant Little Ones'' is a 2018 Canadian drama film, written and directed by
Keith Behrman Keith Behrman (born April 1, 1963, in Shaunavon, Saskatchewan) is a Canadian film and television director and writer,"Vancouver director wins Jutra Award for feature". ''Vancouver Sun'', January 15, 2003. who won the Claude Jutra Award in 2003 for ...
.
["Euclid431 Pictures gets ready to GLO"]
'' Playback'', July 18, 2017. The film stars
Kyle MacLachlan
Kyle Merritt MacLachlan (; ' McLachlan, February 22, 1959) is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Dale Cooper in '' Twin Peaks'' (1990–1991; 2017) and its film prequel '' Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me'' (1992), as well as roles ...
and
Maria Bello
Maria Elena Bello (born April 18, 1967) is an American actress and writer. Her film roles include '' Permanent Midnight'' (1998), '' Payback'' (1999), '' Coyote Ugly'' (2000), ''The Cooler'' (2003), '' A History of Violence'' (2005), '' The Mumm ...
as the parents of a teenage boy (
Josh Wiggins), whose lives are upended after their son and a friend are involved in an intimate incident after a party.
The film was shot in
Sault Ste. Marie,
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...
, in 2017.
[ It premiered on September 9 at the ]2018 Toronto International Film Festival
The 43rd annual Toronto International Film Festival was held from September 6 to 16, 2018. In June 2018, the TIFF organizers announced a program to ensure that at least 20 percent of all film critics and journalists given press accreditation to ...
, and received a limited release in the United States on March 1, 2019. In December 2018, the Toronto International Film Festival named the film to its annual year-end Canada's Top Ten Canada's Top Ten is an annual honour, compiled by the Toronto International Film Festival and announced in December each year to identify and promote the year's best Canadian films."Canada's Top Ten awards will honour excellence in Canadian cinema" ...
list. Behrman won the Vancouver Film Critics Circle
The Vancouver Film Critics Circle (VFCC) was founded in 2000 by David Spaner and Ian Caddell, in order to help promote Canadian films and the British Columbia Film and Television Industry. Its membership includes print, radio, on-line, and telev ...
award for Best Screenplay for a Canadian Film.
Plot
Ray Winter leaves his wife, Carly, for another man. Ray's popular, athletic son, Franky, refuses to talk to his father despite Ray's pleas. Some time later, Franky is about to celebrate his birthday. His best friend, fellow swimmer Ballas Kohl, pressures Franky to sleep with his girlfriend Priscilla just as Ballas and his girlfriend, Jess, have done. Ballas boasts of having had sex repeatedly. After Franky's birthday party and while intoxicated, Ballas and Franky have a sexual experience with each other. Ballas is terrified that his actions have outed
Outing is the act of disclosing an LGBT person's sexual orientation or gender identity without that person's consent. It is often done for political reasons, either to instrumentalize homophobia in order to discredit political opponents or to com ...
him, and he and his girlfriend begin to spread rumors that Franky acted solely and performed unwanted oral sex while Ballas was sleeping. This results in Priscilla angrily confronting Franky and breaking up with him without allowing him to explain what had really happened.
Ballas’ and Franky’s friendship falls apart in the weeks that follow, with everyone in school believing that Franky is gay. This causes him to abandon the swimming team and spend more time alone with himself. Only his transgender friend Mouse and Ballas’ sister Natasha, who was also branded as an outcast after being sexually assaulted at a party, know the truth about what had happened between the two boys after the party and that Ballas had initially came on to him. Natasha and Franky form a close relationship with each other, which angers Ballas and causes him to threaten Franky to stay from his sister.
Ballas damages Franky’s bike, but is eventually forced to pay for the bike's repair by his parents. Franky steals his bike in retaliation, later claiming to not know the bike's whereabouts. Ballas then tries lying to Natasha, saying that Franky is only using her to prove he's straight, but she refuses to believe him. When this doesn’t work, he drunkenly confronts Franky outside a convenience store and berates him, beating him up before running away. This results in the police being called, to which Natasha overhears Ballas’ confessions to the police and spreads the truth about Ballas and Franky to the entire school. Ballas is soon branded as an outcast and is dumped by Jess when she finds out the truth.
Franky slowly begins to piece his life back together with the support of Mouse and rejoins the swimming team. He also rekindles his relationship with Natasha, much to the regret of Priscilla, having also learned the truth about Franky. Franky reconnects with Ray, and admits that he is uncertain about his sexuality, as he did not feel uncomfortable during the incident with Ballas. Ray, who is gay and only came out
Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBT people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity.
Framed and debated as a privacy issue, coming out of ...
long into adulthood, points out that he may not know his full truth yet, but he need not rush to immediately define himself. Through this guidance and the support of his family and friends, Franky finds himself confident in moving forward in life.
Some time later, it is revealed that Franky had broken apart Ballas' bike into parts and hid it away. He builds it back together with Ray's help and returns it to Ballas' house, alongside a dog tag necklace Jess gave to Ballas and he had lost during Franky's birthday party. As Franky leaves on his bike he fires a flare gun Ballas gave to him as a birthday present, which Ballas and Natasha see from afar.
Cast
* Josh Wiggins as Franky Winter
* Darren Mann as Ballas Kohl, Franky's lifelong best friend
* Taylor Hickson
Taylor Delaney Hickson (born 11 December 1997) is a Canadian actress raised in Kelowna, British Columbia. After graduating high school, she was granted an acting audition with a casting agent, who signed her the same day.
Following a minor par ...
as Natasha Kohl, Ballas's younger sister and Franky’s new girlfriend
* Kyle MacLachlan
Kyle Merritt MacLachlan (; ' McLachlan, February 22, 1959) is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Dale Cooper in '' Twin Peaks'' (1990–1991; 2017) and its film prequel '' Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me'' (1992), as well as roles ...
as Ray Winter, Franky's father
* Maria Bello
Maria Elena Bello (born April 18, 1967) is an American actress and writer. Her film roles include '' Permanent Midnight'' (1998), '' Payback'' (1999), '' Coyote Ugly'' (2000), ''The Cooler'' (2003), '' A History of Violence'' (2005), '' The Mumm ...
as Carly Winter, Franky's mother
* Peter Outerbridge
Peter Outerbridge (born June 30, 1966) is a Canadian actor, best known for his role as Ari Tasarov in the CW action series ''Nikita'', Dr. David Sandström in the TMN series ''ReGenesis'', Henrik "Hank" Johanssen in ''Orphan Black'', Bob Corbett ...
as Nic Kohl
* Niamh Wilson
Niamh Wilson (; born March 9, 1997) is a Canadian film and television actress from Oakville, Ontario, known for her role as Corbett in ''Saw III'', reprised in ''Saw V''; the Canadian horror film '' The Marsh'' (2006); and the title role in the ...
as Mouse, Franky's female friend
* Kiana Madeira
Kiana Madeira is a Canadian actress. She starred as Moe in the Netflix television series '' Trinkets''. Madeira played Deena in the 2021 Netflix horror film trilogy '' Fear Street''.
Early life
Madeira was born in Toronto, Ontario, and grew u ...
as Jess, Ballas' girlfriend and later ex-girlfriend
* Hailey Kittle as Priscilla, Franky's girlfriend and later ex-girlfriend
* Stephanie Moore as Angie Kohl
* Evan Marsh as Connor
* Olivia Scriven
'' Degrassi: The Next Generation'' is a Canadian teen drama television series created by Linda Schuyler and Yan Moore. The series is now considered the first incarnation and premiered on CTV on October 14, 2001, and then ended on MTV Canada and ...
as Deanne Winter, Franky’s sister
* Carson MacCormac as Michael, a bullied boy
Critical response
''Giant Little Ones'' received positive reviews. On the website Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film has approval rating, based on reviews. The website's consensus reads, "''Giant Little Ones'' puts a complex and refreshingly nuanced spin on the traditional coming of age drama, further elevated by the admirable efforts of a talented cast." On Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
, the film has a weighted average score of 67 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews."
Writing for CBC Arts
CBC Arts (french: Radio-Canada Arts) is the division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that creates and curates written articles, short documentaries, non-fiction series and interactive projects that represent the excellence of Canada's div ...
in his regular ''Queeries'' column on LGBTQ
' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity.
The LGBT term is ...
entertainment, Peter Knegt praised the film as part of a rising and necessary trend of honest depictions of teenage sexuality and sexual identity issues.[Peter Knegt]
"Cinematic sex-ed: Giant Little Ones and why exploring teenage sexuality onscreen is vital"
CBC Arts
CBC Arts (french: Radio-Canada Arts) is the division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that creates and curates written articles, short documentaries, non-fiction series and interactive projects that represent the excellence of Canada's div ...
, March 27, 2019. He wrote that the film "feels like something of an antidote to last year's gay teen rom-com '' Love, Simon'', which felt like it barely scratched the surface of what its characters were going through."[
]
References
;Notes
;Citations
External links
*
* {{Rotten tomatoes, giant_little_ones
2018 films
Canadian drama films
English-language Canadian films
Films shot in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario
Films directed by Keith Behrman
Canadian LGBT-related films
LGBT-related drama films
2018 LGBT-related films
Bisexuality-related films
Gay-related films
LGBT-related coming-of-age films
Juvenile sexuality in films
2010s coming-of-age drama films
2010s English-language films
2010s Canadian films
2018 independent films