BFI London Film Festival: Pick of the day - The Giants

10 April 2012

Today's hot ticket is probably last night's glitzy Festival opener 360, which saw the stars parading up the red carpet outside the Odeon Leicester Square for a film set in all kinds of beautiful locations.

But if you want a refreshing coming-of-age comedy without any global pretensions set in the backwoods of Europe, you couldn't do better than head over to the Vue West End to see The Giants.

The LFF programme suggests the film was influenced by The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but I see it more as Stand By Me minus the sentimentality and with added weed, alcohol and fart jokes. It's the story of three lads at a loose end over a summer where the weather is great but the prospects of entertainment awful. The previous two films by director Bouli Lanners, Ultranova and Eldorado (the latter named after a Cadillac,
not an imaginary utopia) have combined existential angst with sly comedy.

The Giants moves beyond angst into a world where humour becomes a kind of salvation. These are hoodies who don't need hugging, because they have more to teach us than we have to teach them. And to cap it all The Giants comes from Belgium, a country which continues to demonstrate just how well you can get on without a government.

The Giants shows Thurs October 13 at 5.45pm, Vue 5, Fri October 14 at 3.15pm, Vue 6 and Sun October 16 at 1.30pm, Cine Lumiere

The 55th BFI London Film Festival, in partnership with American Express, runs until October 27. All venues, screening dates and times at www.bfi.org.uk, where booking is now open; also by telephone, 020 7928 3232 (9.30am-8.30pm daily), or in person at the box office of BFI Southbank, SE1 (11am-8.30pm daily). Stand-by tickets may be available 30 minutes before screening at the venue.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in