Moving life-story for everyone, albeit socially defected

Rating: 6/10 (1 January 2007)

Big Fish is a very moving story suitable for families. It is not really just about one father and one family, but about most of everyone with a big heart and desire to go beyond the usual... Escapist in nature yet extremely enchanting as yet another typical "American Dream", the myth and adventure as told by the father very precisely describes one's often untold mixed feelings about life and death, about sudden adolescent growth and the sweet sorrows of love...
What weakens the film most is the over-simplification and Cold-War depiction of a demonetized war-time "exotic China" in which the hero suddenly becomes unnecessarily aggressive. At the same time, while the daffodil-filled scene of love and romance is detailed and touching, the over-quick solution of another layer of the story, i.e., the witch/girl/other-woman image, proves to be too shallow in terms of social awareness. There were many allusions to American history particularly in the story of bank robbery and the changing role of poet which, if more adequately explored, could have made the film a much greater one, elevating itself towards many deeper-thinking American social-critic dramatists and European philosophical buldungsroman.