Burton's best

Rating: Null/10 (12 January 2004)

I have seen several Tim Burton films (Batman, Edward Scissorhands, A Nightmare before Christmas). I must admit that my opinion of him was primarily shaped by the look and feel of Batman, which I found far too dark and, above all, cluttered. I was thus delighted by Big Fish, which I found light, airy and sunny by comparison.
The two people I saw the film with were less than enthused. Both felt that running time was too long at almost two and a half hours. One thought the film's flights of fancy were a little too fanciful for his tastes. But I felt the length (and pace) were exactly right for the story Big Fish has to tell, and ditto for its fancifulness. If you're going to tell a tale, as Edward Bloom (Albert Finney/Ewan MacGregor) does, you might as well make it as tall as Paul Bunyan and as big as Babe the blue ox. If Edward Bloom's tales were shorter and more down to earth, they would be nothing more than a traveling salesman's jokes -- and his character would correspondingly be reduced in size and stature to that of a mere mortal, not a man among men.
The casting of the film is phenomenal -- by this, I mean the physical resemblance between the actors and actresses who play Edward Bloom (Albert Finney/Ewan MacGregor) and his wife Sandra Templeton (Jessica Lange/Alison Loman). Finney is endlessly fascinating as the raconteur and should be remembered at Oscar time. MacGregor is charming as always as the younger Bloom. Jessica Lange says remarkably little, but conveys in nonverbal ways Sandra's loving indulgence of her husband's big fish stories.
I defy anyone to see this film and leave the theatre dry-eyed. The final sequences certainly left me with a tear in my eye and a lump in my throat. And that is because the film made me care about its hero as a real human being, however unreal his version of himself may be. More than that -- the film taught me a valuable lesson for my own life, one I was much in need of being taught again: that we must accept people on their own terms, for who they are and aspire to be -- not who we would like them to be. And how often can you say of a Hollywood film that it has had an impact on your life?