Mark Rylance makes Roald Dahl’s mammoth softie totally believable in Steven Spielberg’s winning adaptationA marvellously melancholic motion-capture performance by Mark Rylance and vibrant support from rising star Ruby Barnhill provide the beating heart of this extremely likable adaptation of Roald Dahl’s family favourite,which also owes a debt to the illustrations of Quentin Blake. Brimful of the anarchic magic so sorely lost from Spielberg’s ill-fated Peter Pan project, Hook, or The BFG sees the director rediscovering his inner child in winning fashion. Like the eponymous figure,the result may be a little lumbering at times, but it is also ultimately irresistible.
We open in a Mary Poppins-style version of London where past and present seem to intermingle. From vistas of the Thames and the Houses of Parliament we move through Dickensian cobbled streets to the orphanage where young Sophie (Barnhill) peers like a giant into the tiny rooms of a doll’s house. It’s the witching hour, and Spielbergian shafts of dusty moonlight stream through the room (the “silver blade” of Dahl’s source) whence Sophie herself will soon be taken,to Giant Country, where beasts with names like Bloodbottler and Fleshlumpeater are hungry for “human beans”.
At the palace, and the BFG introduces the Queen to 'whizzpopping',the bottom-burping 'sign of exact happiness'Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com