Wonderful character development!

What makes it different from others?

The first must-see film of the year.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

The thing I like (being a girl from Texas) is that there is a lot of honesty in this film. Elizabeth Taylor is just stunning but watching how well they handle the racism issue in the early 20th Century is quite refreshing.The Mexicans are handled with great nobility and I wonder if this had anything to do with the start of changing attitudes in this world today.Best watched in 2 parts

Spoilers ahead. So what happens in "Giant"? Or rather, what doesn't? PLOT POINT: Handsome, successful, suit wearing Rock brings Liz back to his ranch, to live forever. Immediately upon her arrival, she meets James Dean, a troubled, boyishly handsome ranch hand closer to her age. QUESTION: Will Liz find herself in a torrid love triangle, forced to choose between these two very different (but fascinating) men? ANSWER: Nope. She has little, if any interest in Dean, and only shares a few minutes of screen time with him. He does appear to be interested in her. But whatever is going on psychologically inside the Dean character isn't well dramatized on screen. He's mostly a mystery, a withdrawn, silent character. He does little if anything to actually try to win Liz's heart. At the end of the film, he seems to suggest that his unrequited love for Liz drove all his actions and ruined his life. But given how little interest Liz took in him, Dean ultimately comes off more like an emotionally immature, lovesick teenager than some tragic figure. And the film doesn't even bother to give us a Liz/Dean scene at the end, to provide closure to this part of the story. PLOT POINT: Upon her arrival, Liz also meets Rock's strong willed sister. She's been the queen of the ranch up until now. QUESTION: Will Liz and the sister fight over who is in charge of the ranch, and Rock? ANSWER: Nope. The sister dies shortly after Liz's arrival, in a completely arbitrary, random horse accident. PLOT POINT: Dean inherits a small patch of land adjacent to Rock's ranch. QUESTION: Will the two rivals, now living side by side wage war with each other in an epic battle for control? ANSWER: Nope. They mostly get along with only minor problems. When Dean's wealth reaches new heights, Rock simply sells out. PLOT POINT: Sal Mineo is introduced as a young man who is interested in ranch life, unlike Rock's own kids. QUESTION: Will Mineo, in time, become Rock's surrogate son, and new ranch head? ANSWER: Nope. Mineo is killed (off screen) during the war. The audience is subjected to a dull, unnecessary five minute funeral scene for his character. (While he was alive, all of Mineo's scenes combined represented about two minutes of screen time. The film inexplicably spends more time on his funeral than it did on him!) PLOT POINT: Once grown, Rock's and Liz's kids want to do things with their lives that are different from what their parents want for them. QUESTION: Will these disagreements create conflict in the family? ANSWER: Nope. Rock lets the kids follow their hearts. PLOT POINT: Rock's Latino daughter in law is refused service in the salon in Dean's huge hotel. Rock takes this as a very personal insult to his family by Dean. The two men fight. QUESTION: Does this represent a satisfying climax to the film?ANSWER: Nope. Technically, Rock is right. As the owner of the hotel/salon, Dean is ultimately responsible for what goes on there. But Dean doesn't seem like a racist. He's never said or done anything racist during the film. Also, Dean seems like an indifferent businessman, more lucky than smart. It's unlikely that he was even aware that these racist policies were even in place. Dean's culpability here is weak at best, and it seems like a tenuous foundation to build the climax of a three hour film on. PLOT POINT: At the end of the film, Rock and his family visit a diner. While there, they notice that the owner refuses service to a Latino family, one that Rock has never met and has no connection to whatsoever. QUESTION: Rock fights the manager, to express his outrage at the manager's racism, and to convince him to change this policy. The music score swells. Does Rock win? Does the final scene offer any kind of satisfactory conclusion to this would-be epic story? ANSWER: Nope. Rock loses and the diner will continue its racist policy. The film attempts to end on a happy note, showing that Rock now cares about people of color. But Rock never expressed any racist views in any prior scene, so this doesn't represent substantive character growth. (His affection for Sal Mineo seemed to suggest a man with no race or class prejudices.) Even if Rock had won, it's just a conflict between two men at a diner. For a three hour film called "Giant," it feels like an oddly inconsequential ending.

While it may not be perfect, Giant is to me a better film than the Best Picture Winner of that year Around the World in Eighty Days, which wasn't a bad film but is among the weakest Best Picture Winners. Giant is a very long film and very deliberately paced but is hugely rewarding. It is a very well-made film with fabulous, colourful scenery and outstanding cinematography(the best of its year and perhaps of the decade too), Texas has rarely looked more beautiful on film. Dmitri Tiomkin's score is one of sweeping grandeur, while the dialogue on the most part is thought-provoking, heart-warming and moving and George Stevens judging from how beautifully he directed this film definitely deserved his Oscar. The story tackles many daring themes, especially for back then, and tackles them with a lot of truth and power, while the film does drag at times and tries to do too much in the last act the story is still compelling and rich in detail with a couple of scenes towards the end quite tense. Especially good is that tremendous scene where Jett strikes oil. It does develop the characters remarkably well too, the characters here are quite complex and far from clichéd, especially Leslie and Jett(Bick also evolves into a much more likable character). The acting is excellent, Elizabeth Taylor has only been more lustrous in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and this is most likely her most nuanced performance. Rock Hudson is a handsome and mostly natural screen presence, a little stiff to begin with but it does suit the character actually. And Jett is probably the most complex of James Dean's three screen roles and is just as iconic and in-depth, and, apart from his very overacted final scene acting drunk(his worst and only somewhat bad piece of acting in three great performances in three great films), Dean gives a performance brimming with authority and emotion. He is also the only one of the three leads to look convincing in his ageing make-up and acts aged the most effectively, whereas Taylor and Hudson still looked too young when made up to look aged and didn't look as comfortable as Dean did. The supporting cast are fine too, Caroll Baker, Sal Mineo and a very young Dennis Hopper being the standouts. All in all, a mostly great epic melodrama where you can totally see why it has been and is so positively received, at the same time though it's easy too to see why some may not care for it as it does take more than one viewing to get into it. 8/10 Bethany Cox

I want to say I've been unable to watch this classic all these years, as the airing times never were on during a time I could watch it. However, last night on TCM the times finally worked out and I viewed the movie from beginning to end. Let me say the cinematography was awesome, and the actors were AMAZING, the entire cast pulled off their roles flawlessly. With that being said, I didn't like a single character in the movie at all. The story was not your typical "I want to be entertained happy ending." As a result the 5 rating I give is only for the actors and cinematography of the piece. I finished watching the movie not liking anyone in it as a character there was not one to identify with morally, intellectually, or emotionally. Had there been one character I liked I would have rated it probably higher.