The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, November 2-8
Big (1988)
Directed by Penny Marshall
Though Tom Hanks ably flexed his dramatic muscles as heroic real-life pilot Chesley Sullenberger in Sully, his performance as a disillusioned salesman in the less widely seen A Hologram for the King earlier in the year is, in some ways, even more noteworthy for offering bracing reminders of the terrific comic actor he was in his early years. Perhaps the peak of his achievement in that regard is his performance in Big. More than just the jewel of that 1987-8 cycle of young-old body-switch films (remember Like Father, Like Son? Vice Versa? 18 Again?), Penny Marshall’s film is also a culmination of Hanks’s on-screen persona throughout that decade—that ingratiating innocence of his characters in Splash, Bachelor Party, The Money Pit, etc., made literal in the form of Josh, a kid trapped in a man’s body and being schooled in the complicated ways of the adult world. With the zeal of a silent comedian, Hanks draws on his full arsenal of physical tics for the part—and yet, for all his manic energy, there’s never a sense that he’s begging for the audience’s affection. Instead, Hanks selflessly merges his own palpable joy in acting with the needs of the eternally youthful character he’s playing. If his performance in A Hologram for the King is any indication, even as Hanks has gained in world-weariness almost 30 years after Big, that charming inner child thankfully remains. Kenji Fujishima (November 8, 8pm; November 13, 2:30pm at MoMA’s Hanks tribute)