Gerry, Rachel Griffiths, is an Aussie hitch-hiker travelling in the north of England when she manages to get temporary work painting a string of electric pylons which straddle the beautiful Yorkshire landscape. Boss of the team working on the pylons is Ray, Pete Postlethwaite, who is separated from his wife and shares lodgings with Steve, James Thornton, a member of his team. Before long, Gerry finds herself involved with both men...
Among Giants was written by Simon Beaufoy, who also wrote The Full Monty, and both films deal with an amiable group of working-class characters and have North Country settings. Apart from that, they have little in common, and Among Giants is markedly inferior. The characters aren`t particularly interesting in themselves, and Rachel Griffiths` Gerry is a thoroughly unconvincing character - a `full monty` sequence involving her and Postlethwaite set in a dank and forbidding looking abandoned water tower looks more uncomfortable than erotic. Director Sam Miller, who comes from television, does an undistinguished job with this susprisingly mundane material.
Margaret`s Comment
Margaret`s Comment
Among Giants is strangely unsatisfactory because it sets up a number of interesting scenarios and then fails to capitalise on any of them. There`s the love affair between Ray - Pete Postlethwaite - and Gerry - Rachel Griffiths. It just happens with very little exploration of the nuances of the lives of these two lonely people. And just as weirdly it isn`t there any longer and although we can understand Gerry`s loss of passion we maybe can`t like her for it. It`s not easy to believe in the relationship between Ray and Gerry despite the solid performances. Pete Postlethwaite is a fine actor but not a great idea as a romantic leading man, not in this film anyway. The nude scene under the water tower is completely unerotic.
We`re given too little of any of the characters to really gain much feeling for them. Screenwriter Simon Beaufoy obviously enjoys the cut and thrust of working class repartee as he showed in The Full Monty but when it comes to enmeshing the joshing talk into something more substantial he just seems to stay on the surface of things. And why would a major works project painting fifteen miles of electric towers have to be done as an under-the-table job? The film sets it up as such, failing to let us know why, and then lets any tension or interest in that set-up fizzle out. Among Giants lacks investment in its characters and is a bit too dour to be a winner, despite the strength of its performances.
