Big Problems

I’ve seen the 1988 blockbuster movie Big many times over the years. Directed by Penny Marshall, with an original screenplay by Gary Ross and Anne Spielberg, Big is a funny and entertaining comedy fantasy, due in no small part to the energetic and thoroughly winning performance by its star, Tom Hanks. He received a Best Actor Oscar nomination for it, and though he didn’t win, he deserved every accolade for what would turn out to be a breakthrough role.

As much as I enjoy the film, a recent viewing revealed huge plot holes that I’d never paid attention to before. I guess I never noticed because it’s a fantasy film involving a magical arcade fortune telling machine that grants wishes, and I’m as big a sucker for make believe as the next guy. Except there’s one aspect of magical realism that I absolutely insist upon: that the realism parts have to be, well, real. And in this, Big fails on some pretty major levels.

For those who’ve seen it but need a refresher on the plot, check out the synopsis at Wikipedia. For those who’ve never seen it, go watch it and return if you care to, for there be SPOILERS AHEAD!

Okay, so as I said, I will fully accept the fantasy of a kid transforming overnight into an adult at the beginning of a film, and then transforming back to a kid at the end as long as everything else retains a respectable amount of reasonable verisimilitude. But Big doesn’t. And here’s why:

Where’s a cop when you need one?

After Billy learns that Josh has been transformed into an adult, there is a scene where he slinks warily out of his house carrying a bag of what we find out later are adult clothes and money for Josh. As Billy sneaks past Josh’s house next door we see the flashing lights of a police car and Mrs. Baskin in tears talking to a cop. 

Now, except for a later scene where Josh Baskin’s child face ends up on the side of a milk carton (a nice touch in the movie), the screenplay is unconcerned with exploring the police investigation that would have taken place.

In reality, the cops would’ve been all over it once Mrs. Baskin reported her son missing and likely kidnapped by the strange man she chased out of her house with a vacuum cleaner, who—creepily—pulled down his pants to show her a birthmark, which revealed that he was wearing Josh’s underwear. Yikes! They would’ve taken a description of the suspected pedophile/kidnapper, produced a sketch, and plastered his likeness in every precinct in New Jersey and New York, including the Port Authority. Maybe even nationally. Since Josh was a child, the FBI would probably be brought in. The Baskin’s phone would likely be tapped in case there was a ransom demand.

But there is never a mention of cops again, and instead, the adult, would-be child abductor manages to escape to New York City, get a high-powered job in a major US corporation using the same name as the missing child, and all with absolutely no problem or criminal complication. 

Josh Baskin: Illegal Alien?

Speaking of which, since Josh must find a way to support himself for six weeks, he applies for a job at MacMillan Toy Company. During the interview, he gives the HR guy Billy’s locker combination as his social security number. The HR guy, after obsessively snapping his ballpoint pen several times, says, “You’re missing a couple of numbers.” Josh gives him some made-up missing digits and the guy fills them in on the application. In a bit of foreshadowing, Josh’s future love interest, Susan Lawrence, barges into the interview to complain about a lousy secretary the HR guy hired for her. Distracted and annoyed, the HR guy dismisses her and asks Josh, “When can you start?”

Really? You just hire someone on the spot without first doing a background check, calling a former employer, checking his SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER? Who hired the HR guy? The truth is, the MacMillan Toy Company part of this movie would have ended straight away, once they realized that Josh gave them a bogus social security number.

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Josh rents an amazing loft apartment in the West Village and stocks it with a soda pop dispenser, trampoline, and a pinball machine. Let’s put aside the fact that as one of a dozen or so VPs at the toy company, there is no way he could have afforded that place. Let’s ignore this detail, but only because this is a movie taking place in New York City, and it seems to be a custom in Hollywood to give any character who lives in the city an apartment that would be hopelessly out of the character’s price range in the real world. (Did none of these filmmakers ever live in NYC early in their careers?)

But even accepting all of that, the apartment is high-end enough, and the realtor who sold it to him sophisticated enough, that the realty company would have done an extensive background check on Josh. Again, SS#, financial history, credit report, bank account, first and last month’s rent. There is no way Josh could’ve pulled it off.

Memories, like the corners of my mind

These next two plot developments are perhaps the biggest reality busters of the bunch, and for my money they stop the movie in its tracks:

Josh calls home from the office and speaks to his mom.

Josh writes his mom a letter.

I’ll start with the letter, even though this scene comes later in the story than the phone call. Josh writes home, and in a humorous voice-over—where we see a montage of his New York life—he assures everyone that he is all right, and that his kidnapping is “kind of like camp!” 

This letter would be an excellent lead for the police. It would be in Josh’s handwriting, with his fingerprints all over it (albeit, weirdly large for a 13-year-old boy). It would have been post-marked as mailed from New York City, so now the cops can locate the post office the letter was mailed from. And though it doesn’t give up Josh’s definitive location, it gives the cops a geographic focus to their investigation. They surely would canvas the area, run his description through the local precinct, and show his picture along with the sketch of the adult Josh Baskin.

But, really, you can go ahead and forget the letter now, because Josh would never have been able to write it in the first place. In an earlier scene, Josh has a bout of homesickness and calls his mother from his desk at MacMillan Toys. He sings “Memories” to prove to her that he—that is, the young Josh—is still alive and doing fine. A sweet scene. 

But in reality, the minute she hung up, Mrs. Baskin would have called the authorities, and, if there wasn’t already a tap on her phone line, they would have gotten hold of her telephone records and subsequently found the number that called her. They would’ve traced it to the toy company, found out there was a guy named Josh Baskin working there, and arrested him for suspicion of kidnapping and possibly murder (remember, the kid Josh is still missing).

That’s the “real” scenario. Had they continued along those lines, the rest of the movie would have taken a completely different turn—a more interesting and believable turn, in my opinion, and so much so that I actually explored what that might look like. But we’ll get to that.

First, consider some of the other “realities” of the movie as it exists, and you see that there are some pretty big problems, not only with what happens onscreen as we’ve explored already, but also after the end credits roll. It gives an otherwise sweet and poignant comedy a pretty disturbing twist when you follow it to its logical conclusion.

Now what?

At the end of the film, Susan follows Josh to a seaside park, and after seeing the fortune telling machine and the fortune it gives him, she now believes that he really is a kid. She drives him back home to New Jersey and they bid a sorrowful goodbye. After getting out of the car, Josh miraculously turns back into a kid wearing a baggy suit and he enters his house.

This is where the movie ends, but you really have to wonder what the hell Josh tells his mom once he closes the front door behind him. What possible explanation could he come up with for why he’s wearing a grown man’s suit, why he was missing for six weeks, why he wrote a letter saying he was kidnapped, and who the strange man was that broke into their house, put on Josh’s underwear, and later called to sing “Memories”?

After considering all the angles, the best thing for him to do would be to tell the truth. I mean, he was able to convince Susan, why not his mom?

Speaking of Susan. What is going through her head as she drives back to the city? First of all, she has to wrap her mind around the fact that she slept with a 13-year-old kid. I mean, yeah, extenuating circumstances involving an arcade fortune telling machine that turns people into adults. But it’s doubtful the police will be caught up in the magic and wonder.

Because now that little Josh has returned to his family the cops are going to be kind of curious why she was spotted dropping Josh off in front of his house. Was she an accomplice of the man who began this whole crazy kidnapping scheme, who took Josh Baskin’s name for some creepy reason, who worked with her at the toy company, who disappeared in the middle of a presentation, who she followed out to a seaside park, and who now appears to be missing?

Susan has a lot to answer for: child abduction, statutory rape, and now the possible murder of her accomplice. One thing’s for sure, her exciting life as a glamorous toy company executive is over!

Enough. Enough now...

Big was a hugely successful film that did not depend on the reality of its reality to tell an entertaining, funny, and sweet fantasy tale. But after going down this rabbit hole, I found myself wondering how I would have treated the story had I been the screenwriter. As an interesting writing exercise I read through the original script and attempted to craft a storyline that incorporated all the fantasy elements, with a reality that wouldn’t strain credulity.

I won’t bore you with the whole story treatment, but in my version, everything happens exactly as in the original movie up until the point that the grown-up Josh has to find a job. Instead of applying at a big corporate toy company, Josh meets an old, immigrant toymaker at FAO Schwartz who owns a tiny shop in Brooklyn that can barely stay afloat. The old man sees something in Josh’s energy and enthusiasm for toys so he hires him. He pays him a small wage under the table (never asking for his social security number), and lets him stay in the studio apartment above the shop. The story then becomes a sweet tale of friendship between Josh and the toymaker, and a budding romance with the man’s daughter, a young associate in a small Brooklyn law firm (no third base, though!).

The plot turns when—as in the movie—Josh calls his mother in a bout of homesickness. Unlike the movie, however, Mrs. Baskin hangs up and immediately calls the cops, who trace the call and arrest the grown-up Josh on suspicion of kidnapping and possibly murder.

Josh then spends the rest of the movie trying to convince everyone that he is in fact a kid. The toymaker’s daughter takes on Josh’s case, and the impending trial becomes a media sensation. When Josh finally ends up in front of a judge, the courtroom is packed with rubberneckers and the press. The Zoltar machine is located and brought into the courtroom, and right in front of everyone Josh turns back into his 13-year-old self. I even wrote a line for the judge inspired by the ending courtroom scene in Miracle on 34th Street:

JUDGE: I don’t know what power is at work here, what … magic … but it is clearly of a higher authority than my own. It appears as though this young man has been telling the truth all along—no child was abducted or murdered, no man must pay for a crime never committed. And so it is with much humility and, I might add, great pleasure that I pronounce this bizarre, magical, wonderful case…DISMISSED!

OK, sappy. It’s anybody’s guess whether this film would be as fun as the original, but at least the parts based on reality would be REAL! In the final analysis, what makes the original movie Big so winning and likable is the beautifully nuanced, child-like performance of Tom Hanks. I would argue, however, that all the comedy and sweetness that Penny Marshall pulled out of the original would be far deeper and more satisfying had they explored a more realistic reality.

That is, of course, only one man’s opinion, but if anyone is willing to pay to find out, I’d happily write the remake!