The Selfish Giant

Name: The Selfish Giant
Genre: Drama
Released: 2013-10-25
Duration: 1 h 31 min
Rating: 7.3
Cast: Conner Chapman, Shaun Thomas, Sean Gilder

20132013
Not RatedNot Rated
1h 31min

Two thirteen year-old working-class friends in Bradford seek fortune by getting involved with a local scrap dealer and criminal.Two thirteen year-old working-class friends in Bradford seek fortune by getting involved with a local scrap dealer and criminal.Two thirteen year-old working-class friends in Bradford seek fortune by getting involved with a local scrap dealer and criminal.

7.3/10

12K

Director
- Clio Barnard
Writers
- Clio Barnard
- Oscar Wilde(inspired by 'The Selfish Giant')
Stars

Top credits

See production, box office & company info

See more at IMDbPro

Awards
- 12 wins & 21 nominations total

Videos2

Trailer 2:07

The Selfish Giant

Trailer 2:08

The Selfish Giant - US Theatrical Trailer

Conner Chapman in The Selfish Giant (2013)

Clio Barnard in The Selfish Giant (2013)

An official selection at the Cannes Film Festival, The Selfish Giant is a contemporary fable about 13 year old Arbor (Conner Chapman) and his best friend Swifty (Shaun Thomas). Excluded from school and outsiders in their own neighborhood, the two boys meet Kitten (Sean Gilder), a local scrap dealer. Wandering their town with just a horse and a cart, they begin collecting scrap metal for him. Swifty has a natural gift with horses while Arbor emulates Kitten - keen to impress him and make some money. However, Kitten favors Swifty, leaving Arbor feeling hurt and excluded, driving a wedge between the boys. As Arbor becomes increasingly greedy and exploitative, tensions build, leading to a tragic event that transforms them all. —Sundance Selects

dead animal yorkshire england expulsion horse scrap metal 42 more

Trivia
Clio Barnard based Arbor and Swifty on two children she met while filming The Arbor (2010) who worked as scrappers.

Quotes
Policeman: This is a formal interview under caution. Do you understand that, Fenton? Hey, do you understand?
Arbor: Yeah.
Policeman: A witness saw two youths burning railway or communications cable.
Michelle 'Shelly' Fenton: That's nowt to do with him.
Policeman: Cable theft is a very serious crime, Mrs. Fenton. Trespass on the railway is £1,000 fine.
Arbor: I ain't been on railway.
Policeman: Vandalism, endangering lives, maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
Michelle 'Shelly' Fenton: He's just a kid. He ain't nicked no cable. You're looking at wrong place.
Policeman: He is, as you say, Mrs. Fenton, a minor. There's unscrupulous people out there getting kids to do their dirty work so they don't get into trouble with the police themselves.

Connections
Featured in At the Movies: Episode #10.23 (2013)

Soundtracks
Conspiracy
by Bill Brown

Top review

8/10

It's a sad, tough sit - but worth seeing for its gritty honesty.

A story of dependence, damage and desperation, told with grit and grimy frankness. It's also a portrait of friendship born of need and emptiness, on the road to nowhere. The tone of documentary accuracy makes the film even darker.

Much of the movie is hard to bear, yet it never drags, thanks to the momentum that writer and director Clio Barnard finds in the fable, and, above all, to the energy that she unleashes in her young leads, Conner Chapman and Shaun Thomas.

The first great fiction film to be released in 2014, Clio Barnard's second feature, "The Selfish Giant," is breathtakingly assured, ruggedly beautiful, moving and justifiably tragic.

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