“Big”

Tom Hanks’s first somewhat-serious role is a big home run. In “Big”, Hanks plays Josh Baskin, a preteen with a crush on a girl six inches taller than him. At a carnival, young Josh finds a mystical arcade game that grants him a wish. He wishes simply to be big and, the next morning, wakes up as Tom Hanks.

Although his voice has dropped and he has stubble of a thirty-year old, his adolescent mind is intact. He has a hilarious encounter with his mother where he tries feebly to convince her that he is her son. When she freaks out, he runs away from home to New York where he gets a job and a serious girlfriend, and grows up.

Hanks’s performance earned him his first Academy Award nomination. Until “Big”, his comedic skills had yet to be stretched to their abilities (“Dragnet”, “The Burbs”). But this film gives him a chance to portray a character with great depth. Yet his performance does not carry the film.

Director Penny Marshall gives us the go-get-em 1980s through the eyes of Josh. The corporate greed of the toy manufacturer for which he works is seen through his naïve eyes, as is the scummy New York. Josh’s rival at the company is portrayed as nothing more than a bully. The tone of the film is more dramatic than comedic. The punch lines are dry and reveal further depths of the characters. The writing and direction is confident in its material while resting on the shoulders of a complex character, terrifically executed by Hanks.