The beautiful Southern Belle in Burton's entourage of films

Rating: 9/10 (15 May 2012)

Tim Burton in recent years has dwelled into a very familiar look, a familiar style, and to an extent a familiar cast of actors and actresses that continuously follow the man's career. But in the midst of this consistent approach to directing films in the past decade is a movie so magical, so majestic and so unlike Burton you can hardly believe it was him behind the camera. That's because Big Fish is the most emotionally-driven tale he's ever done, and this requires quite a different tactic. Big Fish is his Schindler's List, a movie that emotionally touches home to not only the viewer but to the director making it.
Big Fish is about a wrecked father-son relationship that tries to heal before the father passes away. But the father continues to reveal himself through tall tale stories that blend tons of fiction with plenty of reality—although the son is determined to figure out the truth behind all the life stories. Based on a late 90s novel by Daniel Wallace, this movie follows the life of the father (and all his crazy moments) leading up to the present with him inches from death.
Argue what you will about Burton's look, his selection of actors has always been superb and it's no different here. From the young Billy Crudup and Ewan McGregor running the show to great smaller performances by Jessica Lange, Helena Bothman Carter and Albert Finney we have ourselves a great cast representing a great group of characters we can easily grow to love and associate with.
While Burton has divulged into the typical dark Gothic look with dark gloomy backgrounds and dark gloomy material, Big Fish's Southern Gothic roots demanded a different look. And this is where Burton excels in more ways than one. The visual effects blended with the story quite well, the imagery was a beautiful mix of warm, dark, and downright colorful, and the cinematography made Alabama shine beautifully in ways that not even Forrest Gump could achieve.
Beautiful is the best way to describe Big Fish; from the writing to the acting to the overall look and feel. It tackled the father-son dynamic extremely well, flowed peacefully without ever feeling boring, and kept your interests and emotional investments nice and high up until the very end.
While overall this will never go down as his most popular or more iconic movie, I can and will safely say that this is one of his best films and easily his best directing performance he's ever going to deliver.
And unless he can learn to expand his directing horizons, this will remain true.