Fair emotional warning

Rating: Null/10 (3 January 2004)

If you have a father that is the spitting image of Albert Finney, your father is ailing and your father is often bedridden drymouthed, with ashy skin and the skin pulled down to the pillow, you won't leave dry eyed. My father is ailing and has the same facial sag and hair as Albert Finney. I was teary eyed at Finney's first introduction.
This is a fun serious Tim Burton film. It's different for him, and in some ways is uneven in it's presentation. I sometimes felt he was singing the delta blues when he usually sings pop music, if you get my mixed media metaphor. Some of the riffs might feel a little plastic, but overall it's a satisfying film. There are varying degrees of acting talent, but nothing I didn't forgive by the end. Ironically for a Tim Burton film, I felt some of his more surreal story scenes weren't as strong as the more real parts. The circus scene when he meets his wife is a gorgeous work. It all works in the end though, and does so quite well.
The archstone of talent in this movie is Albert Finney. Without him, everything else would be just Tim Burton design and a somewhat clunky film. I'm no Finney afficionado, so I can't compare this performance with others, but he really got me. I couldn't look at the screen sometimes when he was bedridden, it was just a little too personal. I don't like to even think about it. As the senior Ed Bloom, or should I say the real Ed Bloom, he draws all the other characters, even his younger self, together. I know that is an obvious statement, but it is an important feat in a movie that tries to reconcile fragments with the whole.
If you're looking for an objective view on Big Fish, I can't give it. It's a personal film, and I've only seen it once. I'm never a good judge of movies after only one viewing. But I am going to have to wait until DVD so I can get all verklempt in the privacy of my own home. I do recommend seeing it. A legit tear jerker that had people sniffling all around me.