In a tank full of water, three rats paddle around in search of safety. At some-odd minutes and thirty seconds, one rat stops paddling and the others continue. The question is: What does that mean? As Larry Arbogast, a university researcher and longtime friend of Brian Weathersby (Paul Dano), says, "The logic is that when forced into an adverse situation&ellips; the rat will oscillate between attempts to escape and resigning to its fate." As for the one rat who gave in first, "I'm trying to quantify how helpless this one feels and why more today than yesterday," says Larry. "Nobody knows to what degree the rat feels helpless." And so begins the quirky romantic comedy Gigantic by director Matt Asleton.

Starring indie poster-children Zooey Deschanel and Paul Dano; traversing the fractured and eccentric world of uber-rich Manhattanites, the melting pot population of a Swedish mattress wholesaler, and the old-fashioned yet nontraditional family of an 80-year-old patriarch (Edward Asner); and unfolding around the process of international adoption, Gigantic is a film very much steeped in the bizarre uniqueness that is to be expected in independent filmmaking. Between the film's opening sequence with the lab rats to Brian's repeated attacks by random strangers, the film presents several concepts of life as adversity we must fight against for our survival. Offering up various nontraditional family situations as well as many references to bi-racial relationships, the film presents a look at both the divisions and bonds that define our world. The question is: What do the strange bonds we form have to do with the helplessness or hopefulness of the lives we lead? What is happiness? What is despair? What is family? And in an age where almost every day presents us with the choice to either sink or swim, what does it take to survive?

For simplicity sake, we'll say that Gigantic is the story of Harriet "Happy" Lolly (Deschanel) and Brian. After meeting each other when Happy's wealthy father (John Goodman) purchases a $14,000 mattress from Brian, Happy and Brian embark on a tentative relationship of sorts. They sleep together twice and go out to dinner with Happy's father. Brian tells Happy he is in the process of adopting a Chinese baby. Happy smiles and nods. Brian learns that he has finally been accepted as an adoptive parent and tells Happy that he loves her. Happy pukes up her entire lunch in the bathroom and enrolls in a cooking class in Europe.

Less a carefully-constructed narrative in which each scene builds on the last and leads to the next, Gigantic comes off as more a collection of random moments that may or may not be connected to each other at all. We visit Brian at his work. Brian visits Happy at her work. Brian gets shot while hunting with his dad and brothers. Happy looks online for her mother's most recent phone number and calls her for relationship advice. Happy's father describes how he meditated a tumor out of his body. Brian's brother meets with his Chinese business partners and tells them he will no longer need them to find a baby on the black market.

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