But this could be a bigger bite than usual. Even with those rabbit ears.
I Kill Giants (2017) gets off to a promising start as we follow Barbara Thorson, a 12 year old, at a guess, living on the American eastern seaboard, through a day or two of her life: the bullies at school who find her less than compliant, the teachers who find her less than compliant, the principal who finds her less than compliant, the new school counselor who finds her less than compliant.
And at home, where her older sister and brother also find her less than compliant. Parents? Not in sight; the older sister seems to be running the joint.
But intruding into Barbara’s world is Sophia, a British import of Barbara’s age who seeks her friendship. Barbara is a practicing supernatural specialist, it turns out, defending the town from the giants who turn up every month or so. Sophia finds the giant schtick hard to believe, but the bullies are rough, and Barbara does help Sophia with those bullies. Soon, she’s learning from Barbara about the habits of the giants, and how to kill them, from nasty deadtraps to fire.
And into Barbara’s imperfect world comes two things: a terrible and surprising hurricane, containing a supernatural force that even she cannot really hope to defeat, and the revelation, at least to the audience, that her mother is alive.
And present.
Upstairs.
In bed, with a terminal illness.
And this introduces the troubling question of whether all of this is a heroic fantasy that lets Barbara pretend that she is a force to be considered in the world, when the reality is that she’s simply another piece of detritus swirling about in the wake of the random vortex in which we all try to live our lives, construct social barriers against the terrors of chaos, and be happy, OR if the giants, of which we see hints and hear their imprecations, do exist, and Barbara is doing a desperate duty protecting the town not only from the naturally self-interested giants, but from the very knowledge of their existence.
And this is where the story begins to fall apart. Perhaps I was simply too interested in the questions of what lies beyond our puny, natural perceptions, and took the giants to be real and Barbara to be the guardian of the town. That left the unanswered question of how Barbara learned how to kill the giants, and do so without revealing their shocking existence to the town’s inhabitants. I mean, those are gonna be some big scat left behind.
But the explanation that this is just cover against the incomprehensible Universe damaging Barbara as it swirls unfeelingly onwards is a cop out, just another story of replacing reality with a fantasy, and clumsily done at that. It’s never entirely clear which way the story is going.
Part of it is the incomplete character building. Her older sister, Karen, is little more than a cardboard cutout whose sudden stress, while understandable, just doesn’t come across as a clue to the real nature of the story. Maybe it’s her mother’s terminal illness, maybe it’s having giants staring in the windows. The brother is a zero. The bullies are more fun, and as it appears that they’re set upon by giants at one point, we have to wonder.
In the end, I found this to be a story that loses its way after a fast start. But maybe your mileage will vary. I hope it does. Enjoy.
