Big Fish Review
by Homer Yen (homer_yen AT yahoo DOT com)January 14th, 2004
"Big Fish" Offers Whimsical Tale
An early scene in "Big Fish" becomes a metaphor for our level of involvement. We see a camp counselor perched by a fire looking purposefully at his troop. As he tells his story, his head nods up and down; his voice is somewhat hushed as if to draw his audience closer; his arms are animated as they sway to punctuate his story points; he adds the necessary inflection to make the tale seem larger than life. Some of the members are enthralled as they lean forward with intent stares to absorb all that they can. Some are noticeably disinterested as their thoughts are elsewhere.
Thanks primarily to the presentation style of Director Tim Burton, most of us will be one of the enthralled. The gorgeous cinematography and imaginative settings gives the film a life of its own and we want to lean forward, hoping that we might even fall into the big screen and somehow inhabit the world that has been created. It's like a place that Alice might have encountered during her journey through Wonderland.
At its heart, it is a story about a son (Billy Crudup) who is trying to reconcile a couple of facts with his ailing father (Albert Finney). The dad has a tendency to regale any willing listener with stories that seem just a bit too amazing. But that does not matter to his audience. They find his stories charming and his life more colorful than a painter's palette. But the son is flustered. He hopes to learn more about the truths of his life.
While this description may make this film seem like an overly weighty family drama, it's actually not. Rather, it is a cute presentation about the various episodes of the old man's life as told through his own slightly embellished view. These little vignettes may seem improbable to close-minded individuals like his son. But to everyone else, his life seems like a fairy tale. Tim Burton masterfully creates a vision of this world. And we lean forward to watch the chapters of his younger life (portrayed by Ewan McGregor) come together.
Those memories involve a witch (Helena Bonham-Carter) whose heart is not nearly as scary as her looks. He befriends a gentle giant (Matthew McGrory). He finds an idyllic hamlet nestled inside a haunted forest. He encounters a circus run by lycanthropy-stricken Amos Calloway (Danny DeVito). He discovers his one true love (Alison Lohman). And he becomes an elite officer in the army carrying out impossible missions.
You'll certainly admire how good-looking the film is. The drawback, however, is that the real and the magical world don't seem to come together seamlessly enough. It's like watching a musical where the production looks for any excuse to begin singing. Here, Tim Burton looks for any entryway to usher us into his fantasy world. This left the family drama at somewhat of a standstill. And without much of a dramatic arc, the film feels longer than it actually is.
January is traditionally a dead zone for new releases, with audiences shrinking after the holiday boom and studios dumping mediocre flicks into theaters. I suppose that if half of these yet-to-be-released duds were half as creative as "Big Fish," then the 2004 season would be off to a promising start.
Grade: B
S: 0 out of 3
L: 0 out of 3
V: 1 out of 3
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