Big (1988)

"I want to spend the night with you."

"You mean sleep over? Okay, but I get to be on top."

Picture, if you will, an adult Josh Baskin curled up in a fetal position in on the bed in a seedy motel room on his first night alone in New York City. Or jumping on a trampoline with Susan. Or playing keep-away from Paul with a racquetball. Now picture those scenes with Robert DeNiro. Because that's almost what happened.

Given the natural youthful exuberance and easy charm he'd demonstrated in his roles to date, it's little wonder Tom Hanks was Penny Marshall's first choice for the lead role in her coming of age comedy about a boy who makes an impulsive wish and finds himself aging from 13 to 30 overnight. Unfortunately, Hanks' schedule was occupied with filming Dragnet and Punchline. After several other actors were considered (John Travolta, Albert Brooks, and Kevin Costner, to name a few), De Niro was cast. He even prepped for the role by hanging out shooting hoops with Jared Rushton (Billy), but ultimately the $6 million price tag De Niro came with proved to be too high. By the time De Niro stepped down, Hanks was finished with his other commitments, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Of all our Hanx viewings thus far, this is the film I've been most familiar with, so it was definitely a challenge to look at it with fresh eyes. It's unmistakably a comedy, but it comes with a hint of poignancy in watching a child finding himself suddenly thrust into the role of an adult and try to navigate in 6 weeks what most of us are given 20 years to try to figure out (and let's face it, most of us aren't nearly as successful at it as Baskin is). In previous posts I've talked a lot about character growth or lack thereof making or breaking a film for me, and it's never been a more literal occurrence than it is here. Hanx has to walk a very delicate line in maturing his character as a necessity for survival in the adult world while making it plausible that he can readjust to life as an adolescent when the jaunt is over. And he does it (because of course he does), with a little help from the costume department.

Can we talk wardrobe for a minute here? Because I think it deserves a mention. When we first see 13-year-old Josh Baskin, he's the very picture of your average American kid with his laser tag bedding and little league baseball jacket. When he wakes up the morning after his transformation, he's wearing nothing but a pair of suspiciously not-snug-at-all briefs (I guess we have to make some allowances - it wouldn't do to show full frontal in a PG film), leaving his torn pajamas on the floor. He beats a hasty retreat to his parents' bedroom and snatches sweats from his dad's closet, then later acquires some additional garb from Billy, most likely stolen from his dad's closet. Once he starts receiving paychecks (apparently MacMillan Toys pays all their employees under the table, given that Josh has no legitimate paperwork), Josh is easily able to procure this ensemble:

As Josh meets and is romanced by Susan, his wardrobe gradually starts to mature into ties and sweaters in muted tones, until in the final scene we find ourselves staring at a 13-year-old clomping up the street to his house in a power suit and too-big dress shoes. It's a powerful image.

Susan's ensemble does the exact opposite. When we first see her, she's in a crisp suit with a tight chignon in her hair. As her relationship with Josh progresses, Susan softens into more youthful, girlish attire and literally lets her hair down. While she may not be willing to revert to childhood for the sake of her new squeeze, it's obvious that she's changed.

I have to wonder what's next for Josh and Susan. I doubt they ever see each other again, given the inherent awkwardness that would inevitably ensue. But how does she cope with the knowledge that she basically seduced a 7^th grader? Josh seems to settle easily back into playing stick ball and riding bikes with Billy, but there's no way Cynthia Benson is going to be enough for him now. And what about Josh's poor mother? How the hell does he explain to her where he's been all this time? Does she ever let him out of her sight again? And how is she going to react when her son grows up and starts to bear an eerie resemblance to the man who barged into her living room in her husband's sweats while she was vacuuming and scared the living daylights out of her? Because you can be certain that face will be burned into her memory. Luckily, Josh has about 20 years or so to try to sort that one out.

There's an old rumor involving this film that theorizes that an alternate ending was shot where Susan uses the Zoltar machine to wish herself young again, then walks into Josh's class. I don't know where this idea came from, but thankfully, it never happened. The limits of reality are certainly stretched to begin with in this plot, but in the end everything returns more or less to the way it was, albeit with some big changes in the characters. Who's to say how long the "Zoltar effect" would last if left to run its course? Would Josh have suddenly been blipped back into a kid overnight in six months or a year? Would a young Susan wake up in the morning to find herself in desperate need of a Xanax and some Oil of Olay? For that matter, just how many other New Yorkers' lives were sent into upheaval after their encounters with Zoltar before somebody finally took a sledgehammer and sent the infernal red-eyed, gape-mouthed fortune teller back to the fiery pits of Hell where it belonged? This film evokes so many questions that, like the impulsive wishes of carnival-goers made to an ominous figure at the shadowy fringes of a fun fair, are best left unanswered.