Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 25-November-07
Spoiler Rating: High

The Iron Giant (1999)

If you ever need a good cathartic cry, save the cost of a shrink or a long-distance call and rent "The Iron Giant." It is guaranteed to activate your tear ducts without breaking your spirit or your wallet.

This is the movie that sent Brad Bird on to make "The Incredibles" and "Ratatouille," and it remains his best work to date. "The Iron Giant" tells a simple story with a definite warning about the trigger-happy paranoia which gripped the United States during the Cold War. In 1957, young Hogarth Hughes (voiced by Eli Marienthal) lives the average life of a New England boy, making trouble and keeping his single mother (Jennifer Aniston) on her toes. Tracking a noise in the woods one night (while his mom works late at the diner), Hogarth discovers an enormous, humanoid metal being apparently arrived from outer space. He helps it out of some difficulty and is rewarded next evening by making its acquaintance. The giant is friendly, curious, and quick on the uptake, as well as lonely and equipped with nifty gadgets. He is every kid's ultimate fantasy.

With a friendship established between them, boy and giant must devote some of their time to mundane matters like where to hide an alien who towers over buildings and needs a lot of metal to eat. Fortunately, Hogarth has recently met a good-natured beatnik named Dean (Harry Connick, Jr.), who is an artist by nature and a scrap-metal collector by trade. Unfortunately, Hogarth has also recently met smarmy government agent Kent Mansley (Christopher McDonald), who arrived just after the giant did. Kent insinuates himself into Hogarth's home like a chill in a weary man's bones. He represents the irrational fear of the unfamiliar which can make both men and nations go crazy. He knows there is a huge metal man around and to his way of thinking, "we didn't build it and that's reason enough to ... blow it to kingdom come."

It is easy to see where the story is going even without Dean warning Hogarth that their fun with the giant can't go on forever. Lines have been drawn between the innocence of childhood, which is open to new experience and connection, and the responsibility of adulthood, in which the knowledge of a possible threat is sometimes perceived as the presence of a real one. As the tension mounts to its inevitable conclusion, the lovable giant emerges as the arena where the conflict is resolved. Through Hogarth's comic books, he has settled upon Superman as the person on whom to model himself in his new life. To his dismay, he learns that saving people goes against what he was created to do, but in the end that does not matter. He alone decides how he will respond to others. The choice is his, and it is beautifully made.

It hurts to watch "The Iron Giant," but in a wholesome way, and the story wraps on a positive note. The movie is so plainspoken in its intentions and tender in its emotions that it hits you right where you live.

Copyright © 2007 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.