Fra i giganti

I really don't understand why this film has received such generally negative reaction. I agree that it does bog down in a couple of places, and maybe some of the charactors could have been developed in a litte more detail, but Postelwaite and Griffiths are thoroughly engrossing.

Also, the film is visually very interesting. Someone has a real eye for shot construction.

After looking at the user ratings, I was expecting to be disappointed. I wasn't.

Ray (Pete Postlethwaite) leads a crew of misfits with a long job to paint giant electrical pylons. They pick up Australian hitchhiker and climber Gerry (Rachel Griffiths). Ray's flat-mate Steve (James Thornton) also loves climbing. She joins the group as the only woman on the job.

This is one of those British lower class people films. It does have the great Postlethwaite and Rachel Griffiths. It could do more with the climbing, but the visuals are rarely that challenging. This doesn't have much else. I am willing to give this a passing grade for the simple charm of spending time with Postlethwaite and pixie cut Griffiths is damn hot.

Ray is the foreman of a crew working for the electricity board on an informal, cash in hand basis. They have a few months to paint a 15 mile row of electricity pylons. Into this mix comes Australian back packer Gerry who joins the crew for some work. Ray and the much younger Gerry start to fall for each other as they work causing splits and disharmony within the crew.

I vaguely remember hearing reviews of this film when it was released but it didn't do well and was hardly in the cinemas for a week before it vanished. It popped up recently on TV and I gave it a go despite not hearing much good about it. It is actually not that bad but it is a long way short of The Full Monty.

The film seems to want to have some sort of gritty social dimension about it but this is no Ken Loach film and it doesn't come off. I didn't get any wider point about the class of these men that ran through the story. The serious side to the work that comes in later is not as strong as it needs to be and didn't carry enough weight. The main thing here is the confused romance between Ray and Gerry that didn't quite come off. The reasons for the difficulties in the relationship are not totally clear and the way it goes is not convincing, rather a bit dull and pedestrian. It has it's moments of potential beauty such as the cooling tower scene and tender moments between the pair, but these don't come off as well as they should.

I found this to be partly the fault of the cast. Postlethwaite is a reasonably good actor and Griffiths can be very good (check out HBO's 6ft Under) but they lack a real sense of chemistry that was needed to be realistic. The crew are all pretty good despite having not well formed characters. Postlethwaite needed to be stronger but he is a little lo-key when really he should have commanded the screen more, although his tact does work in the quiet moments.

The direction is good and Miller seems to like the wide Northern landscapes with all his swirling helicopter shots and fancy shots through the pylon structures. Add to this the haunting score and the film has a sort of other-worldly feel to it that the material can make good on. Maybe I just didn't get it and others may find this to be very touching, however I must admit that I never got emotionally involved in any of it and it left me feeling a bit dry more than anything else. It may have had potential on paper but on the screen it goes for a big drama but fails to satisfactorily deliver.

As a drama set in working class Yorkshire, Among Giants certainly has its antecedants: The Fully Monty, with which it shares a screenwriter, Sheffield and an interest in full male nudity (which in this film, we actually get to see!); Brassed Off, which also featured Pete Poselthwaite, a collection of emotional but never histrionic performances, and a slightly charicatured depiction of free market economics; and sitting above them all, the memory of Ken Loach's Kes. The film lacks Loach's realism, and the plot is full of holes. Against that, both Poselthwaite and Rachel Griffiths are superb, and it's shot with a great feel for landscape, both inside and outside the city. It's not perfect, and it lacks the Monty's cheap selling points, but in spite of that, it's done with real feeling and is arguably the better film.

An odd movie. Rachel Griffiths is the one to watch. She plays a free spirit climber who gets involved with one of the male leads. She's vulnerable and not at all sure of the situation she is involved in. I wish her character was more revealed, emotionally. I wanted to know more of her character but maybe that is what she was playing towards. She was intriguing. She was great in `Hilary and Jackie'. Pete Postlethwaite was as usual very good. He's a very versatile and talented actor