ewan mcgregor, albert finney
billy crudup, jessica lange
danny devito
unfashionable observations rating: B-
Edward Bloom (Finney) has always been a great teller of tall tales about his oversized life as a young man (McGregor), when his restless soul led him on an unlikely journey from a small town in the deep South, all around the world, and back again. Listening to the old man speak is like listening to the description of a dream-world, replete with a tender giant, a witch who can tell you exactly how you’re going to die, and even a pair of conjoined-twin lounge sisters. It is no surprise then that the elderly Bloom is naturally charming to everyone who comes within earshot—everyone but his own estranged son Will (Crudup). Upon news of his father’s stroke, Will goes back home and tries to make peace with the old man before his death, all the while attempting to separate the fact from the fiction of his father’s colorful life.
Big Fish thoughtfully questions the very notion of honesty as a virtue in one’s everyday life. However, it manages to do this uncontroversially by focusing upon the valid distinction between how things actually happen in the world, and how individuals want to remember them. Interestingly, it posits that identity is not so much a function of one’s actual self, but rather a function of the self one chooses to affirm.
At one point in the movie, a dejected Will implores his father to tell him the truth about his past, without any fantastic embellishments. Utterly insulted, the elderly Edward Bloom asks, “What do you want Will? Who do you want me to be?” At that point, we recognize that Edward Bloom’s tall tales are no mere flights of fantasy. They define him as a human being insofar as he holds them so close to his heart. Whether the events of his stories actually happened is a non-issue. What matters is that Edward has chosen to affirm a particular self-image—one that is not so much true, as it is interesting.
Big Fish is certainly a bit of a wild ride into the imagination of director Tim Burton. However, the movie’s strength is also its main weakness. In a kind of rolodex of tall tales and strange characters, this movie spits out story after story that are at best loosely connected. For example, the long, and sometimes boring tale of Edward’s encounters with Norther Winslow (Buscemi) seems to go nowhere. About the only reason I can think of for Winslow’s existence in the film is the fact that he’s just another one of the abnormal characters that populate Edward’s young adulthood. This bent towards strangeness for its own sake does very little to support the main thematic structure of the film.
It must be noted that the epic structure comes together quite well in the film’s denouement. It is at that point where all of Burton’s characters are redeemed, at least emotionally—even those that were thematically superfluous. Burton surely succeeds in telling an uplifting, genuinely touching story about a son at odds with his larger-than-life father. However, the myriad characters and events that the young Edward Bloom meets and experiences tend to create an uneven mythology with no central focus. From giants to witches to conjoined twins, we find that only the anomalous nature of such characters unifies them. And that might not be enough.
Tim Burton set out to make a big movie; but Big Fish may be too big for its own good.
I’d give Tim Burton’s Big Fish a B-.
