"We were like strangers who knew each other very well".

Rating: 9/10 (10 September 2016)

I like whimsical stories, and when a film manages to deliver the goods, so much the better. Ed Bloom's (Albert Finney) tall tales have never been accepted by his son Will (Billy Crudup), and consequently the two have grown farther and farther apart. But the impending death of the elderly man will create a remarkable reconciliation that allows the son to realize that things aren't always as they seem, and that sometimes, the most fantastical stories might actually be true. I have to admit, I don't always get what director Burton is trying to convey in his movies, but this is a bittersweet tale that comes full circle in reconciling a son with a father who was rarely around while he was growing up. An all too familiar occurrence I might suspect, and the kind that often goes unresolved. "Big Fish" is particularly poignant for small pond citizens like myself, where one's opinion of a father may be enhanced to larger than life by those he's impacted and influenced over the course of a lifetime.