Even by the standards of high-concept '80s
flicks, there's a lot of dark, unsettling
stuff in Big that gets brushed under the rug.
So dust off your floor piano, grab a soda
from the vending machine you bought for your
loft, and settle in to learn what's so messed
up about Big.
The first truly upsetting moments of Big hit
the screen well before Josh Baskin gets started
with his age-changing shenanigans.
Instead, it comes from a short but truly upsetting
bit involving Josh's best friend, Billy, and
his absolutely miserable family situation.
In a scene that lasts less than a minute,
we see Billy's family gathered around the
table for dinner, sitting in browbeaten silence
as Billy's mom pounds the table and shouts
about how terrible they are.
We even see Billy himself quietly serving
dinner to the entire family even as his mom
makes her clearly false point about how the
family never helps her with anything.
The way the rest of the family acts seems
to indicate that this is a pretty regular
occurrence around the dinner table, but the
worst part?
Billy himself, who gathers up a plate of food
and leaves without even a sideways glance
from his mom.
The point of this entire scene seems to be
to establish why 13-year-old Billy can go
to New York City after school every day without
anyone bothering to ask why, but it also makes
you wonder why he couldn't have been the one
who made a wish instead of Josh.
If he'd suddenly found himself in the body
of an adult, it's doubtful that he'd ever
come back home, and it really makes you wonder
if anyone would've missed him.
By the end of the movie, Josh starts to realize
that getting his wish to be big is actually
a bad thing, but maybe there's a reason for
that.
If Zoltar has the mystical power to transform
Josh into a 30-year-old, then it probably
could've made things a lot easier for him
once he found himself in his new body, too.
It could've given him some clothes that would
fit rather than just adult-sized Underoos,
for instance, or provided a driver's license.
The thing is, the Zoltar machine doesn't start
up with its wish-granting magic until after
Josh starts angrily slapping and punching
the machine in the throes of a teenage temper
tantrum.
It stands to reason that Zoltar's particular
methodology here is less about granting a
wish and more about getting that sweet revenge.
Forget about whatever moral this movie is
trying to teach us about growing up too fast
- the real takeaway here is to treat vending
machines with respect, a lesson Josh never
learns.
Speaking of things that Zoltar could've done
to make Josh's adult life a little easier,
maybe it could've changed his mom's memories
so that she didn't try to kill him with a
kitchen knife the moment she saw him standing
in her house.
The scene where Josh first tries to explain
that he's been magically transformed into
a grown man is played for laughs, but imagine
seeing this scene from Mrs. Baskin's perspective.
She's going about her day when a strange man
shows up in her house looking disheveled and
confused, starts talking about her son, and
then drops his pants.
Is it any wonder she seems convinced that
he's definitely a kidnapper, and possibly
something much, much worse?
That's not the only time we see her reaction,
either.
While Josh is off dancing on keyboards and
sleeping on a trampoline, we see his parents
in tears, pleading with the police to find
their son.
The moment she turned around to see Tom Hanks
standing in her kitchen ranting like a madman
is probably going to stand out as the most
traumatic moment of her life.
Imagine having a panic attack every time you
saw David S. Pumpkins, and you'll start to
understand how harrowing that could be.
"Any questions?"
"Yes!
Several!"
Soon after landing his grown-up office job,
Josh calls his mom and, as her son's "kidnapper,"
assures her that Josh is just fine and that
he'll be back in a month or so.
There's one additional wrinkle this time around,
though.
See, kidnapping is a federal offense, meaning
that if the Baskin family reported their missing
child and the break-in from the mysterious
pants-dropper - which they did - then the
FBI would've gotten involved.
If true crime documentaries and Law & Order:
SVU have taught us anything, it's that one
of their first steps would be recording and
tracing any phone calls on the chance that
the kidnappers call for ransom.
So why isn't the next scene a bunch of armed
cops and FBI agents storming into the MacMillan
Toy Company offices looking for a kidnapper
who was dumb enough to call from a job he
got using the missing child's name?
There were probably a lot of questions to
answer around the office in the days after
we stop following the story.
One of the most tragic scenes in the entire
film comes toward the end, after Josh has
seemingly embraced his larger life and forsaken
his old pal Billy.
As Billy is feeling sorry for himself for
being snubbed by his friend, we get a scene
where he interacts with Mrs. Baskin.
You know, the woman who's afraid her son might
be dead, which Billy knows for a fact is not
true?
The scene involves Mrs. Baskin sitting in
Josh's room alone, holding the present that
she got him for his birthday –- a birthday
she thinks he missed because he's been kidnapped.
Billy, on the other hand, knows full well
that Josh had a perfectly fine birthday, because
he was there at the party!
The only real cause for alarm is that he's
celebrating with his 28 year-old girlfriend,
which is bad, but still a lot better than
"dead and buried in an unmarked grave."
The truth might be tough to explain, but at
least it wouldn't prolong her suffering.
Instead, we just get this.
"Everything's gonna be okay."
While most of the drama we see in Big comes
from watching as the naive Josh tries to navigate
through adulthood, it's worth noting that
he's occasionally in some very real danger.
Not only does his mom pull a knife on him,
he also winds up staying in a rundown flophouse
with a constant background noise of screaming
and gunshots.
It's even bad enough that he feels compelled
to barricade the door before curling up on
a moth-eaten mattress to cry himself to sleep.
That raises the question, though: What if
his mom's protective instinct had driven her
to sink that knife into Adult Josh's chest?
What if he'd been mugged, or caught by a stray
bullet?
What if he'd fallen off his indoor trampoline
and cracked his head open?
What if Josh had died while he was, you know,
Big?
Are we operating under werewolf rules, where
he'd turn back into his true childish form,
leaving his mom shocked to see that she'd
just accidentally stabbed her own son?
Or would his body have stayed as it was, leaving
the grown-up Josh as an inexplicable and unidentifiable
corpse?
Either way, it's a pretty grim situation to
contemplate.
While Josh has plenty of problems negotiating
stuff like formal dinners and business meetings,
there are a few aspects of adult life that
he manages to sail through without any sort
of problems at all - and they're arguably
the most important parts of being a grown-up.
He aces a job interview, quickly secures a
promotion for a salaried position with benefits,
and then takes his first paycheck and gets
a gigantic studio apartment.
In Manhattan.
All of this despite the fact that he definitely
wouldn't pass a credit check, gives everyone
a name that's probably also on the news as
a missing and possibly kidnapped child, and
can't even put down his correct social security
number.
"Couple of numbers missing on your social
security.”
"Oh… twelve."
Okay, so maybe that's not that dark, unless,
of course, you're a millennial watching this
movie with the three roommates you have in
your 800-square-foot apartment in between
your five gig-economy jobs.
Promotions?
Job interviews that result in an instant hire?
A steady salary that allows you to afford
the deposit on a Manhattan apartment and furnish
it with a gimmicked Pepsi machine?
The '80s might've been some kind of coca-fueled
wonderland, but today, this whole work situation
is even less believable than the magic carnival
machine.
When Josh gets his job at the toy company,
his first encounter with a coworker comes
from Scotty, a cubicle-mate played by Jon
Lovitz.
His appearance is brief, but it does serve
to provide some insight to the sleazy world
of office politics in 1988.
After introducing himself and advising him
to slow down so he doesn't get anything done
too fast and raise his employers' expectations,
Scotty points to a female coworker and advises
Josh that he should immediately have snacks
with her.
No, seriously.
"Say hi to her and she's yours.
She'll wrap her legs around you so tight you'll
be begging for mercy."
"I'll stay away from her, then."
This is the very first conversation Scotty
has with this coworker, or that anyone has
with Josh at his brand new job.
Not only is that a completely insane way to
greet a new hire, even for the '80s, it also
indicates that the MacMillan Toy Company is
a whole new level of hostile environment for
the women who work there.
If this is the way the people at this job
act, it's no wonder that Susan falls for Josh
immediately, since he's the only one who isn't
acting like a cartoon wolf during business
hours.
Josh's biggest obstacle at work is Paul, a
scheming rival toy executive who is way more
evil than that description would otherwise
imply.
For the most part, his evil machinations are
limited to trying to sabotage Josh's pitch
for a new toy, but there's one scene where
he gets suddenly and unexpectedly violent.
Presumably hoping to better know his enemy,
Paul takes Josh to a racquetball court, briefly
explains the rules of the game, and starts
a match.
When Josh correctly points out that Paul screwed
up a serve, however, Paul's smirking overconfidence
immediately turns into shouting, swearing,
and shoving.
There's nothing in between, just an explosive
outburst of rage that finds him spewing insults
and even wrestling Josh to the ground over
a racquetball game.
In the movie, the passing pedestrians are
delighted by a fistfight breaking out, but
we in the audience know that Josh is a literal
child being screamed at and physically assaulted
by an adult.
For a slapstick comedy, that's pretty uncomfortable
to watch.
Big clocks in at over two hours, presumably
because they needed those scenes of Billy's
abusive mom and Mrs. Baskin quietly mourning
her son, but by the end of it, we get a happy
ending where Josh returns home, back to his
normal age.
His mother is overjoyed to see that her son
is alive, and Susan returns to Manhattan,
tying everything up with a heartwarming bow.
Except that we're left wondering what happens
after.
Josh cannot possibly explain where he's been
to his family or the police, who are all under
the impression that he was kidnapped, with
the evidence of his phone calls home to back
it up.
Does he make up a story?
Does he just clam up?
Does he actually try to convince his mom and
the authorities that magic is real and he
was the victim of a curse handed down by an
inanimate object?
No matter what he chooses to tell, or not
tell, that kid's definitely winding up in
therapy.
And what about Susan?
When the adult Josh Baskin suddenly disappears,
leaving behind an empty apartment full of
toys and a set of bunk beds, she's going to
be questioned by the cops as his girlfriend.
What's she going to tell them?
How does she talk about Josh's disappearance
without either sounding completely out of
her mind or like she's covering up a murder,
or both?
And that's not even considering that she has
to confront the fact that she fell in love
with a 13 year-old child and had snacks with
him while he was in his own magic future body!
That's a whole lot to deal with while you're
trying to avoid being arrested.
And then there's what happens as time goes
on.
Eventually, some true crime aficionado is
going to figure out that these two strange,
unsolved cases both involve someone named
Josh Baskin, happening in the same area, at
the exact same time.
In the world of Big, there's no way that there
aren't at least three documentaries and an
episode of My Favorite Murder about this.
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