This passionate contemporary fable, which features outstanding performances by its young leads, has echoes of socio-realist classics such as Ken Loach’s Kes. Set in modern Bradford, it charts the progress of two adolescent boys from tough estates who survive day to day scavenging for scrap.  It is loosely based on the classic Oscar Wilde fairy story. It takes the original story’s key theme of adults excluding children and reworks it into a modern day tragedy.

Director-screenwriter Clio Barnard, who made her name with an innovative abstract documentary experimenting in ‘verbatim cinema’ (The Arbor), has indicated that the Wilde story should be seen as a starting-point for the film rather than being a literary adaption. The viewer familiar with the Wilde tale can however take pleasure from watching out for parallels and allusions, not least of course the identity of the film’s ‘giant’.

“So hauntingly perfect is Barnard’s film, and so skin-pricklingly alive does it make you feel to watch it, that at first you can hardly believe the sum of what you have seen” Robbie Collin, The Telegraph.

“The film is a tragedy: keenly observed, warm, often funny, but a tragedy.” Roger Ebert, Rogerebert.com.