Tackled by the expertise direction of Steven Spielberg and based on the Roald Dahl book
Picturehouse, Liverpool
From 22nd July 2016

Reviewed by Darren and Bobbi

The girl Sophia, an insomniac with a vivid imagination, is living a lonely life in an orphanage. Aware of her sadness is a Big Friendly Giant, who, one night, when all are asleep, reaches in and grabs the terrified Sophia from her bed.

The Giant runs off across lands and seas to the country of the giants. But, despite his intimidating size, this giant is a kind-hearted soul, whose only urge is to care and protect Sophia, and is an outcast himself from the other giants because, unlike them, he creates beauty and refuses to eat children.

The rest of the film is a tense hide and seek battle between BFG, Sophia and the nasty giants.

My ten-year-old daughter has read all the Roald Dahl books, aside of this one, and she loved the film. She was glued to her seat through the whole of it, hardly turning to touch her drink by her side.

At one point, in a tense moment, when the bad giants were routing around for Sophia, my daughter was sitting tensely on the edge of her seat, moving her arms and willing for Sophia not to get caught.

I appreciated the amazing crossover of computer generated images (CGI) with real life human beings. Gone are the old days when giants were clearly superimposed.

I’ve never read the book so don’t know how true the film was to the original story. But I did notice the silence of all the adults in the cinema. A great film to take the kids to see in the summer holidays.

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writers: Melissa Mathison (screenplay), Roald Dahl (book)
Stars: Mark Rylance, Ruby Barnhill, Penelope Wilton