A visually beguiling feature debut from Anders Walter with a killer central performance from 15-year-old Madison Wolfe.

This imaginative film marks Anders Walter’s impressive directorial debut following his Oscar-winning short Helium (2013). Here he puts his past experience as an illustrator to good effect in bringing Joe Kelly and Ken Niimura’s graphic novel to the screen, which tells the story of Barbara Thorson (Madison Wolfe), a lonely 12-year-old girl who, with her imagination, struggles to escape the grim reality that surrounds her. She is an outsider at school where she is continually being bullied by a group of girls as well at home by her gaming obsessed brother Dave (Art Parkinson) and her workaholic sister Karen (Imogen Poots).

The only people who sympathise with Barbara’s world and her giants are the new girl at school Sophia (Sydney Wade) and her school therapist Mrs Mollé (Zoe Saldana). This female version of A Monster Calls is engaging and boasts good special effects plus a confident lead performance from Wolfe under Walter’s well-measured direction, but curiously it fails to touch the heart.

GEORGE SAVVIDES

Cast: Madison Wolfe, Imogen Poots, Sydney Wade, Rory Jackson, Zoe Saldana, Noel Clarke, Jennifer Ehle, Ciara O'Callaghan, Art Parkinson, Don Wycherley.

Dir Anders Walter, Pro Chris Columbus, Michael Barnathan, Joe Kelly, Nick Spicer, Kyle Franke, Kim Magnusson, Adrian Politowski and Martin Metz, Screenplay Joe Kelly, based on the comic book by Joe Kelly and J.M. Ken Niimura, Ph Rasmus Heise, Pro Des Susie Cullen, Ed Lars Wissing, Music Laurent Perez Del Mar, Costumes Charlotte Willems.

1492 Pictures/Ocean Blue Entertainment/XYZ Films/uMedia/Man of Action Studios/Parallel Films/Adonais Productions-Kaleidoscope Entertainment.
106 mins. UK/USA/Belgium/China. 2017. Rel: 6 April 2018. Cert. 12A.

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