'Gigantic'

McClatchy Newspapers (MCT) - First-time director Matt Aselton struggles to generate such an aura of indie cool in "Gigantic" that it's a shock the film doesn't come with a time share on a Brooklyn walkup.

All the elements are here: a cast with both its mainstream and arthouse credentials intact including Paul Dano ("Little Miss Sunshine," "There Will Be Blood," "Fast Food Nation") and indie-rock goddess Zooey Deschanel ("The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford," "Yes Man"); a soundtrack that cruises along to the likes of Edith Frost and Animal Collective; and co-starring roles from Hollywood father figures John Goodman and Ed Asner for that dollop of pop-culture irony. But Aselton has forgotten one thing: Even hipsters need a story and someone to care about.

Dano is Brian Weathersby, a twentysomething slacker for whom breathing seems way too much trouble. He has a dead-end job as a mattress salesman while his best bud, Gary (Sean Dugan), a scientist, is around solely to provide thematic metaphor: he does experiments with rats in water to see which ones swim or give up and go with the flow.

Brian is shaken out of his doldrums by Happy (Deschanel), a bright-eyed though equally aimless young woman whose dad (Goodman) came into Brian's store to buy a $14,000 bed. Brian and Happy fall into something resembling love though both are so bloodless and inert it's hard to tell.

Meanwhile, Aselton, who also co-wrote, piles on indie film's favorite ingredient, quirkiness: Brian's dad (Asner) cooks up hallucinogenic mushrooms; Brian has a lifelong desire to adopt a Chinese baby; and a violent homeless man pursues Brian throughout the movie with the resolution being rather surprising in its callousness.

None of it adds up to much except to wonder what other schools of earnest boredom are swimming in the wake of the success of "Juno" and "Little Miss Sunshine." I'll take that Brooklyn walkup now.

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'GIGANTIC'

Grade: C minus

R (strong language, sexual content, violence); 98 min.

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© 2009, Fort Worth Star-Telegram.