Big Fish is half excellent, half good

Rating: Null/10 (24 January 2004)

WARNING: Newspaper-style movie review, including plot discussion.
Tim Burton is an acquired taste. His flights of fancy and flourishes of eccentric style make him one of the most divisive directors in cinema today. Big Fish, the director's latest, is actually half Burtonian and half family drama. When the images and occurrences are larger than life, the film zips along with plenty of eye candy to sweeten one's taste buds. When the film lurches into the dramatic, the pace flags despite solid acting and a story that's a step or two away from touching. On the whole, because it is so uneven, the two-hour film feels overlong in spite of all the pieces being in place for greatness.
Edward Bloom (Albert Finney) is a man who loves to tell tall tales about his life experiences. His energetic delivery and unmitigated exuberance leave his audiences, disbelieving though they may be, uniformly rapt. That is, except for his son William Bloom (Billy Crudup), a straight-laced reporter who feels that he has lived his entire life without ever knowing the truth of his father. Upon hearing about Edward's impending death, after three years of silence between the two, William travels to his father's bedside with his pregnant wife in tow. There, in Edward's final days, William tries to finally break through the fairy tale facade he's always lived with to understand the stranger he calls dad.
Though Edward is weak, he can't resist spinning stories to his son's French bride. The film traces Edward's life as a young man this way, featuring Ewan McGregor as the young wanderer. This is probably McGregor's best performance to date, because even though Moulin Rouge is a superior film, this role is more focused on acting and a pure emotional connection with the audience. McGregor succeeds on both counts, creating an extremely likeable and always fascinating character to observe. It is a testament to the quality of his performance that he is never overshadowed by the oddball characters he comes across.
And speaking of oddball characters, Burton really shows his stuff when young Edward is traversing Alabama. The impressive array of people he meets includes a giant named Karl, a one-eyed witch (Burton's real-life love Helena Bonham Carter), Japanese Siamese twins, a swarthy old-time carny (Danny DeVito with a wavering Southern accent) and the bare-footed residents of the idyllic town Spectre. This portion of the film includes a haunted forest, a prophetic glass eye and more fantastical fun. Undoubtedly the strongest portion of the film, these flashbacks are both beautiful and energizing.
Tim Burton, who reportedly had a rocky relationship with his father, found his a very personal project and cannot be blamed for turning on the sentimental waterworks near the end of the film. However, after having so much fun with Ewan McGregor, the viewer doesn't want to shed a tear with a dying old man and his stuffy son. Our reluctance to accept the film's tonal shift probably explains why Big Fish isn't as moving as the recent Monster and House of Sand and Fog are. The film is pulling in two different directions at once, and invariably, the weaker side ends up being dragged in the dust.
Big Fish is certainly worth seeing, and if the personal connection is there for you, it may work as well as it obviously hopes to. For me, the happy-go-lucky filmgoer, I would have traded the hour or so of Finney/Crudup for a half-hour more of Ewan. After all, if you aren't going to a Burton film for magic, why bother going at all?
Final Grade: B+