"Big Fish" is a whopper of a movie. At the risk of depressing director Tim Burton for the rest of his career, this one is going to be hard to top. It's the "Moby-Dick" of folkloric cinema, a celebration of storytelling and the American tall tale that also manages to pay moving tribute to fathers. What's more, it has all the earmarks of a Burton film. There are giants, witches, enchanted forests, werewolves, a Batman vs. Joker relationship (according to Burton)--even "hand-o-matics."
The biggest fish in the river, we're told by the narrator, usually get that way by never being caught. And fathers are certainly elusive. To small children, they often seem larger than life. Not even those mythic-scale clashes during the years of teen-aged rebellion can diminish them. Then one day, as adult children, we realize how much we don't know about our fathers, and we want to learn more before it's too late.
Edward Bloom (since James Joyce's "Ulysses," can there be a more mythic last name?) is a common man with an uncommon appetite for a greater fate. So he embellishes the events and deeds from his past with zestful stories that create for him a kind of mythic stature. From his accounts of trying to catch "The Beast," a giant catfish, to more elaborate stories about giants, circuses, Siamese twins, and a Utopian community that's a lot like the land of the Lotus-Eaters from Homer's "Odyssey," he regales his young son with the tales at bedtime. But as the same stories are retold around Cub Scout campfires, at prom time, and even incorporated into the younger Bloom's wedding toast, the son begins to resent them.
Flannery O'Connor once remarked that anyone who survives a Southern childhood has enough material to last a lifetime. This story is set in Alabama, and it celebrates the importance that storytelling has always had in the South. William Bloom becomes estranged from his father after being upstaged on his own wedding night, and as a journalist he's annoyed by the liberties his father takes with the truth. But as it happened in another father-son film, "Nothing in Common," a phone call informing him that his father was off chemo and that it didn't look good is enough to get him to return to his childhood home. Connecting with his father once more, he finds himself wanting to sort out the exaggerations from the facts, and so he asks questions. "My father talked about a lot of things he never did, and I'm sure he did a lot of things he never talked about," Will tells a woman he suspects of having an affair with his father. Eventually, the son-narrator realizes that what he has to go by are the stories themselves, and he retells them, chronologically, in an attempt to come to terms with who his father really is. The movie is a visualization of those stories, retold, interspersed with scenes in present time.
It's a tender story, and Billy Crudup does a fine job of handling the ambivalence Will feels for his father. Marion Cotillard, who plays his pregnant wife, has good chemistry with both Crudup and Albert Finney, who is astounding as the elder Edward, as is Ewan McGregor as the young patriarch. In fact, the whole cast really sells this tall tale as if they believed not only the story, but the importance of storytelling. Jessica Lange is totally convincing as the woman who married Bloom and, unlike her son, remains enthralled by the stories that are Edward's life's blood. Real-life giant Matthew McGrory plays a sensitive 12-foot version of his nearly 8-foot self, while comparative midget Danny DeVito hams it up as a ringmaster-werewolf, and Helena Bonham Carter subjects herself to more "Planet of the Apes" make-up as she makes a one-eyed witch come alive. Somehow, it all comes together, just as the stories that Edward Bloom tells finally make sense to his son by the film's end.
The biggest fish in the river, we're told by the narrator, usually get that way by never being caught. And fathers are certainly elusive. To small children, they often seem larger than life. Not even those mythic-scale clashes during the years of teen-aged rebellion can diminish them. Then one day, as adult children, we realize how much we don't know about our fathers, and we want to learn more before it's too late.
Edward Bloom (since James Joyce's "Ulysses," can there be a more mythic last name?) is a common man with an uncommon appetite for a greater fate. So he embellishes the events and deeds from his past with zestful stories that create for him a kind of mythic stature. From his accounts of trying to catch "The Beast," a giant catfish, to more elaborate stories about giants, circuses, Siamese twins, and a Utopian community that's a lot like the land of the Lotus-Eaters from Homer's "Odyssey," he regales his young son with the tales at bedtime. But as the same stories are retold around Cub Scout campfires, at prom time, and even incorporated into the younger Bloom's wedding toast, the son begins to resent them.
Flannery O'Connor once remarked that anyone who survives a Southern childhood has enough material to last a lifetime. This story is set in Alabama, and it celebrates the importance that storytelling has always had in the South. William Bloom becomes estranged from his father after being upstaged on his own wedding night, and as a journalist he's annoyed by the liberties his father takes with the truth. But as it happened in another father-son film, "Nothing in Common," a phone call informing him that his father was off chemo and that it didn't look good is enough to get him to return to his childhood home. Connecting with his father once more, he finds himself wanting to sort out the exaggerations from the facts, and so he asks questions. "My father talked about a lot of things he never did, and I'm sure he did a lot of things he never talked about," Will tells a woman he suspects of having an affair with his father. Eventually, the son-narrator realizes that what he has to go by are the stories themselves, and he retells them, chronologically, in an attempt to come to terms with who his father really is. The movie is a visualization of those stories, retold, interspersed with scenes in present time.
It's a tender story, and Billy Crudup does a fine job of handling the ambivalence Will feels for his father. Marion Cotillard, who plays his pregnant wife, has good chemistry with both Crudup and Albert Finney, who is astounding as the elder Edward, as is Ewan McGregor as the young patriarch. In fact, the whole cast really sells this tall tale as if they believed not only the story, but the importance of storytelling. Jessica Lange is totally convincing as the woman who married Bloom and, unlike her son, remains enthralled by the stories that are Edward's life's blood. Real-life giant Matthew McGrory plays a sensitive 12-foot version of his nearly 8-foot self, while comparative midget Danny DeVito hams it up as a ringmaster-werewolf, and Helena Bonham Carter subjects herself to more "Planet of the Apes" make-up as she makes a one-eyed witch come alive. Somehow, it all comes together, just as the stories that Edward Bloom tells finally make sense to his son by the film's end.
"Big Fish" is a whopper of a movie. At the risk of depressing director Tim Burton for the rest of his career, this one is going to be hard to top. It's the "Moby-Dick" of folkloric cinema, a celebration of storytelling and the American tall tale that also manages to pay moving tribute to fathers. What's more, it has all the earmarks of a Burton film. There are giants, witches, enchanted forests, werewolves, a Batman vs. Joker relationship (according to Burton)--even "hand-o-matics."
The biggest fish in the river, we're told by the narrator, usually get that way by never being caught. And fathers are certainly elusive. To small children, they often seem larger than life. Not even those mythic-scale clashes during the years of teen-aged rebellion can diminish them. Then one day, as adult children, we realize how much we don't know about our fathers, and we want to learn more before it's too late.
Edward Bloom (since James Joyce's "Ulysses," can there be a more mythic last name?) is a common man with an uncommon appetite for a greater fate. So he embellishes the events and deeds from his past with zestful stories that create for him a kind of mythic stature. From his accounts of trying to catch "The Beast," a giant catfish, to more elaborate stories about giants, circuses, Siamese twins, and a Utopian community that's a lot like the land of the Lotus-Eaters from Homer's "Odyssey," he regales his young son with the tales at bedtime. But as the same stories are retold around Cub Scout campfires, at prom time, and even incorporated into the younger Bloom's wedding toast, the son begins to resent them.
Flannery O'Connor once remarked that anyone who survives a Southern childhood has enough material to last a lifetime. This story is set in Alabama, and it celebrates the importance that storytelling has always had in the South. William Bloom becomes estranged from his father after being upstaged on his own wedding night, and as a journalist he's annoyed by the liberties his father takes with the truth. But as it happened in another father-son film, "Nothing in Common," a phone call informing him that his father was off chemo and that it didn't look good is enough to get him to return to his childhood home. Connecting with his father once more, he finds himself wanting to sort out the exaggerations from the facts, and so he asks questions. "My father talked about a lot of things he never did, and I'm sure he did a lot of things he never talked about," Will tells a woman he suspects of having an affair with his father. Eventually, the son-narrator realizes that what he has to go by are the stories themselves, and he retells them, chronologically, in an attempt to come to terms with who his father really is. The movie is a visualization of those stories, retold, interspersed with scenes in present time.
It's a tender story, and Billy Crudup does a fine job of handling the ambivalence Will feels for his father. Marion Cotillard, who plays his pregnant wife, has good chemistry with both Crudup and Albert Finney, who is astounding as the elder Edward, as is Ewan McGregor as the young patriarch. In fact, the whole cast really sells this tall tale as if they believed not only the story, but the importance of storytelling. Jessica Lange is totally convincing as the woman who married Bloom and, unlike her son, remains enthralled by the stories that are Edward's life's blood. Real-life giant Matthew McGrory plays a sensitive 12-foot version of his nearly 8-foot self, while comparative midget Danny DeVito hams it up as a ringmaster-werewolf, and Helena Bonham Carter subjects herself to more "Planet of the Apes" make-up as she makes a one-eyed witch come alive. Somehow, it all comes together, just as the stories that Edward Bloom tells finally make sense to his son by the film's end.
The biggest fish in the river, we're told by the narrator, usually get that way by never being caught. And fathers are certainly elusive. To small children, they often seem larger than life. Not even those mythic-scale clashes during the years of teen-aged rebellion can diminish them. Then one day, as adult children, we realize how much we don't know about our fathers, and we want to learn more before it's too late.
Edward Bloom (since James Joyce's "Ulysses," can there be a more mythic last name?) is a common man with an uncommon appetite for a greater fate. So he embellishes the events and deeds from his past with zestful stories that create for him a kind of mythic stature. From his accounts of trying to catch "The Beast," a giant catfish, to more elaborate stories about giants, circuses, Siamese twins, and a Utopian community that's a lot like the land of the Lotus-Eaters from Homer's "Odyssey," he regales his young son with the tales at bedtime. But as the same stories are retold around Cub Scout campfires, at prom time, and even incorporated into the younger Bloom's wedding toast, the son begins to resent them.
Flannery O'Connor once remarked that anyone who survives a Southern childhood has enough material to last a lifetime. This story is set in Alabama, and it celebrates the importance that storytelling has always had in the South. William Bloom becomes estranged from his father after being upstaged on his own wedding night, and as a journalist he's annoyed by the liberties his father takes with the truth. But as it happened in another father-son film, "Nothing in Common," a phone call informing him that his father was off chemo and that it didn't look good is enough to get him to return to his childhood home. Connecting with his father once more, he finds himself wanting to sort out the exaggerations from the facts, and so he asks questions. "My father talked about a lot of things he never did, and I'm sure he did a lot of things he never talked about," Will tells a woman he suspects of having an affair with his father. Eventually, the son-narrator realizes that what he has to go by are the stories themselves, and he retells them, chronologically, in an attempt to come to terms with who his father really is. The movie is a visualization of those stories, retold, interspersed with scenes in present time.
It's a tender story, and Billy Crudup does a fine job of handling the ambivalence Will feels for his father. Marion Cotillard, who plays his pregnant wife, has good chemistry with both Crudup and Albert Finney, who is astounding as the elder Edward, as is Ewan McGregor as the young patriarch. In fact, the whole cast really sells this tall tale as if they believed not only the story, but the importance of storytelling. Jessica Lange is totally convincing as the woman who married Bloom and, unlike her son, remains enthralled by the stories that are Edward's life's blood. Real-life giant Matthew McGrory plays a sensitive 12-foot version of his nearly 8-foot self, while comparative midget Danny DeVito hams it up as a ringmaster-werewolf, and Helena Bonham Carter subjects herself to more "Planet of the Apes" make-up as she makes a one-eyed witch come alive. Somehow, it all comes together, just as the stories that Edward Bloom tells finally make sense to his son by the film's end.
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