Written by Anne Spielberg and Gary Ross, the movie directed by Penny Marshall released June 3, featuring film star Robert loggia, John Heard and Elizabeth Perkins. Big is a 1988 fantasy comedy by Gracie films.
Penny Marshall brings a logic to the premise that is sustained through most of the movie. And where the other movies snickered at the sexual possibilities in the idea, she faces up to them with both candor and taste.
What makes this all work, of course, is Hanks himself, who brings remarkable authenticity and simplicity to the role. He makes being a kid seem as wonderful as it was, and as scary and as confusing too.
Big may well be a formula fantasy movie, but Penny Marshall's polished direction combined with Hanks's gauche charm make it the best of the spate of body-swap movies turned out by Hollywood in the late 1980s.
When Marshall brings Hanks and Perkins together, she discovers a grace and lightness in their relationship that transcends the pinched thematics of the script.
Big, which has been directed by Penny Marshall with verve and impeccable judgment, drops a child's innocence into the corporate rat race as if it were a depth charge.
Hanks, as a stranger in a strange land, gives us equal portions of laughs and insights into the worlds of both adults and adolescents. Big also offers up a very funny satire of corporate ladder climbing.
