Review
BIG FISH
Starring Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Billy Crudup, Jessica Lange, Alison Lohman and Helena Bonham Carter
Directed by Tim Burton
Opens
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Tim Burton’s imagination has brought us strange and beautiful visions like Edward Scissorhands and Sleepy Hollow through his unique approach to mythmaking and fables, set within otherworldly environments. With Big Fish, Burton successfully makes the transition to a mainstream story, integrating his unique talents and particular vision with a contemporary story of a father-and son-relationship in a moving and beautifully realized film.
Will Bloom (Billy Crudup) has become disenchanted with his father Ed’s (Albert Finney) larger-than-life tales, resentful of the fanciful inventions and embarrassed by the memory of his own childhood belief in their literal truth. So irritated is he with Ed’s scene-stealing renditions that father and son have not spoken in years. Will moves abroad and makes a successful career in journalism, pinning down facts in plain black and white. When Will learns his father is terminally ill, he returns from France with his pregnant wife (Marion Cotillard) to the family home, where he tries to uncover the "truth" about his father. He begins by skeptically examining his father’s most outlandish inventions and is surprised to find evidence for some of his father’s claims. More importantly, he begins to newly appreciate the stories by watching the delight his mother (Jessica Lange) and wife take in them.
We are drawn into Ed’s fantastic world, reliving how he parachuted into Korea and narrowly escaped with a set of conjoined twins, how he dared to look into the glass eye of a witch and see his own death reflected there, how he struggled through Sleepy Hollow-esque woods and resisted the siren call of a town called Spectre, how he confronted a giant and befriended a part-werewolf circus owner. We experience the trials he went through to win over the love of his life and how finally, he captured the elusive big fish of the title on the day Will was born.
Burton’s magical yet light touch comes to the fore in bringing these stories vividly to life. Ewan McGregor perfectly captures the young Ed, an eager, energetic big fish in a small town. Burton creates a hyper-realistic fantasy world where giants and witches seem perfectly credible. The images are lovely, from the grass-paved town of Spectre and the fairy-tale woods, to the bright carnival world of the circus and the impossibly sun-drenched college where Ed woos his bride-to-be with an effusion of daffodils.
Albert Finney is inspired casting as the aging raconteur. Although he spends a good deal of his time in bed, his energy and enthusiasm make the character both plausible and likeable. Jessica Lange as his wife, who understands and appreciates the value of her husband’s storytelling, is also wonderful.
Big Fish is a touching story of a father and son relationship, without the usual overstated sentiment. The father doesn’t change at the last minute or apologize for his parenting. Instead the son rediscovers the language of his father and learns to recognize the reality at the heart of fiction. |
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