My Giant Parent Guide
Parent Movie Review
My Giant is a nice mix of emotions, making it hard to place on a particular shelf of genre in the video store. With Billy Crystal playing the lead and penning the script, you might expect a comedy, but after a few laughs up front, it moves into a more sentimental vein.
Crystal plays Sammy, a talent agent who has just been fired by his one client while working on a b-grade foreign film in Romania. Dejected and distracted, he accidentally drives his car off the road and into a lake. When two huge hands reach through the roof of his wrecked convertible, he’s convinced God has come to meet him. Instead he discovers Max (Gheorghe Muresan), a towering Romanian who is as gentle as the sheep he tends.
It doesn’t take Sammy long to see how his tall friend could bring in big dollars. Ever persistent, he talks Max into coming to the U.S. so he can land him in a movie. The shy Max agrees, but only if he can first meet an old acquaintance, a girl he kissed over 20 years ago, and to whom he has continued to write, even though he has never received a reply. But trying to help Max forces Sammy to look at his own life and decide what he values most. You’ll laugh and you’ll cry.
For parents, My Giant may cause a similar struggle. The first two-thirds of this movie include frequent mild profanity and the inappropriate use of terms of Deity. These elements, along with a short violent clip from the movie Dirty Harry and a scene where Max is drunk and violently vomits on another man, will have many parents raising their eyebrows.
Yet the last third of the film finds Sammy making some good choices. For the first time, he begins to put the needs of others before his own desires. So where does My Giant fit on the video shelf? Previewing is advised so that you can decide if it is worth sharing with your older children.
Updated March 12, 2009
