The picture is well enough acted, and quirky enough to be a wonderful focus of conversation for some folks, but just not a very good movie for me. It is certainly not horrendous: It is good enough to be interesting and does keep one's attention, but for my money, even if it is a rental, a film must reach a level of believability, or be a well enough made film to suspend all disbelief. "Gigantic" does neither.

    Director Matt Aselton, who shares the writing duties with Adam Zagata, cast Zooey Deschanel as Harriet / Happy an eccentric free spirit, who cannot abide attachment to conventional relationships or careers, but curiously finds herself falling for an equally eccentric Brian Weathersby, a mattress salesman, played by Paul Dano. Brian has his own issues with his own fragile psyche, as his life is often interrupted by a figment of his schizophrenic fractured ego, an imagined homeless man that beats him with pipes, shoots him with a low caliber rifle, and other harsh treaments.

    Both fated and reluctant lovers are spawn from peculiar, odd families, exept Brian's mother, played by veteran actor Jane Alexander. Brian's father, played by Ed Esner, bonds with his three odd sons by partaking in hallucinogen mushrooms, which can't be of any helpwith Brian's profound struggle with his reality. Happy's father is played by John Goodman, who is even more eccentric and more wealthy than Brian's nutcase of a Dad.

    Quirky characters are good in films, makes them more interesting, with one caveat - the film must be based in some semblance of realty. They cannot be beyond the audience's outer reach of some semblance of normal. "Gigantic," at 98 minutes of runtime, just doesn't broach any measure within the range of normal. I also have no idea why they named the picture "Gigantic," other than the obvious fact that John Goodman has put on a great deal of weight as of late. The dude is trully "Gigantic." I can believ that.

    Rated R. Released on DVD June 19, 2009.