Big (1988)

Director: Penny Marshall

Starring: Tom Hanks, Elizabeth Perkins, Robert Loggia

After wishing to be made big, a teenage boy wakes the next morning to find himself mysteriously in the body of an adult.

Feeling down and out, 12-year old Josh asks a fortune-teller machine at a fair to grant him the wish of being big (erm, meaning ‘grown up’, just to be more specific!). The next morning, Josh wakes up as an adult, while maintaining the mentality of a 12-year old kid.

Trying to find the machine again, Josh realizes the fair had moved on. So, him and his best friend Billy sets out to find the fair. In the meantime, Josh enters the adult world and needs to find a job. As luck would have it, he finds a job at a toy manufacturing company. And this is where the film truly carried its weight, and makes one ask: why do grown-ups design toys for kids?

While Josh – being a kid – succeeds at coming up for ideas for toys, he never bargained on falling in love – with a mature woman – and this is when things get a bit complicated for our leading man. Tom Hanks was fantastic as the grown-up Josh.

‘Big’ is not really a funny comedy. It is a comedy with some funny moments, but mostly it is a film with emotion, and a big heart. Apart from being a lot of fun, ‘Big’ is also a film with a very important message.

‘Big’ was a huge box office success, earning $171.7 million on an $18 million budget. It received 25 award nominations, including Oscar nominations for Best Actor and Best Screenplay.

Would I watch it again? Yes.