Among Giants
UK 1998
Reviewed by Philip Kemp
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
The Yorkshire moors, the present. Ray, a 52-year-old unemployed labourer and keen amateur rock climber, is offered an unofficial, cash-in-hand job by Derek (who works for the local electricity company) to paint 15 miles of pylons in three months. With the help of his young lodger and fellow-climber Steve, Ray recruits a gang of painters: Bob, Frank, Weasel and Shovel. On the moors they meet Gerry, a young Australian woman, who's backpacking around the world. Despite Ray's misgivings, he lets her join the workgang. She proves to be an adept climber and worker and is accepted by the others.
After a tough day Ray, who's separated from his wife Lyn, invites Gerry back for a shower. They become lovers, and go climbing together. Ray asks Gerry to marry him. Steve, embarrassed and jealous, moves back home, but the rest of the gang celebrate the engagement by painting a pylon pink overnight. Bad weather hampers the work. Frank, oldest of the gang, cracks under the pace. Gerry, smothered by Ray's affection, breaks the engagement and moves out. She goes to Steve and they have sex, but he rejects her. Climbing without equipment, she falls and injures herself. The power in the lines is turned on ahead of time; Shovel narrowly escapes death. Visiting Gerry in hospital, Ray accepts they have no future together; once recovered, she travels on. Steve realises his dream of going to India.
Review
"Don't go enjoying yourself," warns a character in Among Giants, "you'll only worry about it in years to come." There's a strong element of dour Yorkshire puritanism in Simon Beaufoy's script. Pleasure, sooner or later, has to be paid for in mental if not physical anguish, and nothing good lasts. Even Gerry, the happy-go-lucky Aussie backpacker, is infected by this Calvinist miasma. To punish herself for her infidelity to Ray she goes climbing solo and unroped, courting the inevitable disaster. Unlike Beaufoy's acclaimed script for The Full Monty (written later, though filmed earlier), there's no final freeze-frame triumph here, just a melancholy dying fall on the autumnal moors.
Still, it's not all unrelieved gloom. Moments of joy, if transient, are infectious and genuine: a rowdy line-dance in a pub (throughout the film, the bitter-sweet tones of Country and Western pervade the soundtrack); a boozy evening under the stars when a truck-driver mate shows up with a tankerload of whisky; Ray and Gerry stripping off for an impromptu shower in a disused cooling-tower. Above all, there's the heady exhilaration of high places, whether rock peaks or pylons. Making his feature debut as director, Sam Miller sheds the twitchy camera moves and relentless close-ups that characterised his work on the television series This Life. Instead we get long, lyrical swoops along lines of pylons as they stride across the landscape.
Pete Postlethwaite, an unconventional but affecting choice as romantic lead, expresses all the wary delight of a man finding love long after he's ceased looking for it. He's well matched by Rachel Griffiths' quizzical, androgynous charm; their initial love scenes together feel convincingly tentative, neither one quite sure what they're getting into. As the third point of the triangle, James Thornton (from Jimmy McGovern's television-drama series The Lakes) makes what he can of an underwritten role.
Among Giants is let down by the predictability of its storyline, and by a reluctance to confront the full dramatic consequences of its events. The antagonism between the devious Derek and the painters he's exploiting never comes to a head, and the rancour between Ray and his estranged wife is simply presented as a given, not fully explored. More than once we seem to be heading for a tragic catharsis: when the elderly Frank collapses under the pressure, when the gentle black worker Shovel is trapped on an unexpectedly repowered pylon, and when Gerry takes her quasi-suicidal fall. Each time the film sidesteps any disastrous outcome. It's as if the affection Beaufoy feels for his up-against-it working-class characters (a sentiment also evident in The Full Monty) makes him over-protective, reluctant to let anything really bad happen to them. If so, it does his heart credit, but it crucially weakens the impact of the film.
Credits
- Producer
- Stephen Garrett
- Screenplay
- Simon Beaufoy
- Director of Photography
- Witold Stok
- Editors
- Elen Pierce Lewis
- Paul Green
- Production Designer
- Luana Hanson
- Music
- Tim Atack
- ©Among Giants Ltd
- Production Companies
- Capitol Films presents with the participation of British Screen/The Arts Council of England/BBC Films and the Yorkshire Media Production Agency a Kudos production
- Developed with the assistance of British Screen Finance Ltd
- Supported by the National Lottery through the Arts Council of England
- Executive Producer
- Jana Edelbaum
- Co-executive Producers
- David M. Thompson
- Jane Barclay
- Sharon Harel
- Line Producer
- Joy Spink
- Associate Producer
- Lou Spain
- Production Co-ordinator
- Bettina Lyster
- Production Location Manager
- Christine Llewellyn Reeve
- Location Manager
- Mark Herbert
- Post-production Supervisor
- Steve Barker
- Assistant Directors
- Pip Short
- Trevor Kaye
- John Withers
- Script Supervisors
- Elizabeth West
- Emma Thomas
- Grace McCarthy
- Casting Director
- Di Carling
- Camera Operator
- Alan Stewart
- Digital Effects
- Cinesite
- Special Effects Facilities
- Emergency House
- Art Director
- David Hindle
- Storyboard Artist
- John Challis
- Costume Designer
- Stephanie Collie
- Make-up
- Design:
- Christina Baker
- Artist:
- Joanna Casserley
- Title Sequence
- Kemistry
- Titles Director:
- Graham McCallum
- Titles Producer:
- Richard Churchill
- Titles Editor:
- Christine Campbell
- Opticals
- General Screen Enterprises
- County & Western Band
- Big Sky
- Bass/Vocals:
- Clive Johns
- Guitar/Vocals:
- Phil Johns
- Keyboard/Vocals:
- Wayne Clark
- Percussion:
- Steve Mitchell
- Manager:
- David Moffitt
- Additional Fiddle Player
- Patrick Walker
- Guitars
- Keith Atack
- Female Vocalist
- Janine Wood
- Soundtrack
- "Never Seen That Look Before" by Wayne Clark, performed by (1) Big Sky, (2) James Thornton, Lennie James, Andy Serkis, Rob Jarvis; "Tonight I'm Gonna Kiss This Heartache Goodbye", "Painting Up the Heavens (Among Giants)" by Wayne Clark, performed by Big Sky; "It Will Always Be You" by Don Walker, performed by Dannielle Gaha; "I'm a Ridin' Old Paint" (trad), Performed by Alan Williams; "The Groove Line" by Rod Temperton, performed by Robert Johnson; "I Dream of Highways" by/performed by Hoyt Axton; "The Air That I Breathe" by Albert Hammond, Mike Hazlewood, performed by James Thornton, Lennie James, Andy Serkis, Rob Jarvis; "Stand by Me" by Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, Ben E. King, performed by James Thornton, Lennie James, Andy Serkis, Rob Jarvis
- Line Dancing Instructor
- Anne Marie Davis
- Sound Design
- Movietrack Ltd
- Sound Recordist
- Rosie Straker
- Re-recording Mixer
- Goldcrest:
- Robert Farr
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Tim Lewiston
- Dialogue Editor
- Elaine Thomas
- Foley
- Artists:
- Jack Stew
- Andrea King
- Editor:
- Vicky Brazier
- Stunt Arranger
- David Cronnelly
- Cast
- Pete Postlethwaite
- Ray
- Rachel Griffiths
- Gerry
- James Thornton
- Steve
- Lennie James
- Shovel
- Andy Serkis
- Bob
- Rob Jarvis
- Weasel
- Alan Williams
- Frank
- Emma Cunniffe
- barmaid
- Steve Huison
- Derek
- Sharon Bower
- Lyn
- David Webber
- Billy
- Alvin Blossom
- Steve's dad
- Sam Wilkinson
- Ray's son
- Jo Wilkinson
- Ray's daughter
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- 20th Century Fox (UK)
- 8,424 feet
- 93 minutes 36 seconds
- Dolby digital
- In Colour