The BFG is Not Such A

Friendly Adaptation

   by Sandra Olmsted

Director Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The BFG has wonderful moments, some excitement, and always terrific special effects. Yet the film, which runs a bit long, has a few story problems and doesn’t seem as powerful as Spielberg’s masterpieces, such as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). The late screenwriter, Melissa Mathison penned both E.T., and Dahl’s story of Sophie (Ruby Barnhill), an orphan, and BFG (Mark Rylance), who collects the dreams and nightmares as a hobby. Spielberg and Mathison, however, made small but significant changes to the story, and the film looses some of the immediacy of the threats and the power of Dalh’s ending.

Barnhill and Rylance carry the film because of their strong portrayals of these interesting characters, good performances, and their chemistry. Barnhill’s Sophie delights and is an excellent promo for adoption. The supporting cast, which includes Bill Hader and Jemaine Clement as mena giants, adds to the fun. The special effects and computer generated worlds of England (in some slightly distant past); Giant Country; and the place where BFG collects dreams will amaze the audience.

When the film soars, it is wonderful; and when it drags, it allows too much time to think about the outlandish-ness of it and problems within the story. Although Dahl’s children’s books often deal with darker elements, Mathison and Spielberg don’t seem able to capture Dahl’s magical formula for balancing the scary and happy. The ending of the film varies Dahl’s, and The BFG ends on a less satisfying and sadder, lonelier note.

During the “witching hour,” Sophie, who can’t sleep, sees a giant outside the orphanage in which she lives. The giant, who she will come to know as BFG, steals her away to prevent her from telling other humans that a race of giants exists. While there’s a certain creepiness to this older, scrawny, odd-looking giant stealing children in the night, BFG is lonely and very kind to Sophie, who he says he took because he heard her unhappiness with those big ears of his. Sophie soon discovers that BFG is ostracized because he’s not like other giants, who are “cannybulls,” according to BFG, who misspeaks constantly. Sophie, a very rational little girl of about ten years old, finds this annoying until she comes to love BFG.

Not soon enough and without their threat becoming real enough, the other giants learn that BFG has another human “pet” and ransack BFG’s laboratory, destroying many of BFG’s colorful jars of collected dreams and nightmares. When the other giants, who are larger than BFG, decide to journey to earth to eat human children, Sophie must come up with a plan to save herself and the other children. BFG will do anything that Sophie asks, and she comes up with a plan to enlist the Queen of England (Penelope Wilton) in preventing the deaths of any more children at the hands of the mean giants.

Perhaps Dahl’s book was not a good candidate for adaptation to the screen because of the amount of exposition required to set up the story or perhaps Mathison relied on exposition too much. However, Spielberg usually foregoes such reliance on exposition. Younger children may get a little bored with the slow pace, but overall The BFG rises above the problems to be entertaining enough for a hot summer afternoon or evening.

A Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures release, The BFG is rated PG for action/peril, some scary moments and brief rude humor and runs 117 minutes. The BFG is in theaters now, and its imaginative visuals are the trip to the movies.

Note: The special effects are very imaginative, but the size of the giant in The BFG can be a little scary for the younger children.

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