The lush, dreamy visuals in Grear Patterson's directorial debut Giants Being Lonely may at first seem a platform for its beautiful young people to play out a familiar but well-crafted coming of age story. But there's much more going on here than that. Patterson's positioning of baseball rivals/friends Bobby and Adam and their love interest Caroline continually shows that while they may be sexually active and struggling with adult problems, these are still kids not quite emerged from innocence. Patterson continually reinforces this contradiction by lusciously evoking child-like activities: running and jumping through fields, the nervousness of a prom date proposal, a pinecone as a promise of love. If this were all it attempted to do, it would be admirable and worth viewing. However, what's really being exposed in this rural American town is instead a powerful indictment of its adult characters. An abusive coach, alcoholic father, a mother who has forfeited her duty to her child...these are the giants who are truly lonely. A provocative final sequence asks whether they are also ultimately responsible for the tragedy that ensues.
Review of Giants Being Lonely
