Among Giants

This film is truly awful. Its intention is to be in the vein of Raining Stones or Secrets and Lies or Brassed Off. It only skips the surface, never digging into the lives of the characters. The guy who cries in the campfire scene must have a problem, but what is it? Can you imagine Rachel Griffiths falling in love with Pete Postlethwaite? Excerpt: "Somewhere under those clothes there's a woman... Get 'em off." That _ridiculous_ scene in the silo or whatever it is, the two of them nude in the falling water? Postlethwaite looks like the village idiot.

Heaven knows why he got mixed up in this film. Don't you make the same mistake.

As a drama set in working class Yorkshire, Among Giants certainly has its antecedants: The Fully Monty, with which it shares a screenwriter, Sheffield and an interest in full male nudity (which in this film, we actually get to see!); Brassed Off, which also featured Pete Poselthwaite, a collection of emotional but never histrionic performances, and a slightly charicatured depiction of free market economics; and sitting above them all, the memory of Ken Loach's Kes. The film lacks Loach's realism, and the plot is full of holes. Against that, both Poselthwaite and Rachel Griffiths are superb, and it's shot with a great feel for landscape, both inside and outside the city. It's not perfect, and it lacks the Monty's cheap selling points, but in spite of that, it's done with real feeling and is arguably the better film.

I did not know of the existence of this film until i saw it on a video preview. I rushed right out to hunt it down as Pete Postlethwaite and Rachel Griffiths are absolutely brilliant actors. I think it is fantastic that character actor Pete Postlethwaite, finally gets to play a romantic lead. There has always been something compelling and charismatic about him. Rachel Griffiths is perfect also. Forget your air-brushed, hollywood ideas of romance and sex, this is real, and sexy and uplifting at the same time.

Ray (Pete Postlethwaite) leads a crew of misfits with a long job to paint giant electrical pylons. They pick up Australian hitchhiker and climber Gerry (Rachel Griffiths). Ray's flat-mate Steve (James Thornton) also loves climbing. She joins the group as the only woman on the job.

This is one of those British lower class people films. It does have the great Postlethwaite and Rachel Griffiths. It could do more with the climbing, but the visuals are rarely that challenging. This doesn't have much else. I am willing to give this a passing grade for the simple charm of spending time with Postlethwaite and pixie cut Griffiths is damn hot.

An odd movie. Rachel Griffiths is the one to watch. She plays a free spirit climber who gets involved with one of the male leads. She's vulnerable and not at all sure of the situation she is involved in. I wish her character was more revealed, emotionally. I wanted to know more of her character but maybe that is what she was playing towards. She was intriguing. She was great in `Hilary and Jackie'. Pete Postlethwaite was as usual very good. He's a very versatile and talented actor