Big Fish

8 June 2013

Big Fish 2003

• Director: Tim Burton
• Based on book  by Daniel Wallace
• Cast: Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Billy Crudup, Helena Bonham Carter, Jessica Lange, Marion Cotillard, Steve Buscemi
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Ewan McGregor – The Ghost Writer, The Island, Star Wars, Moulin Rouge, Young Adam, Little Voice, Velvet Goldmine, A Life Less Ordinary, Brassed Off, Trainspotting, Shallow Grave
• Albert Finney -  The Bourne Ultimatum, A Good Year, Traffic, Erin Brockovich, Breakfast of Champions, Cold Lazarus, Miller’s Crossing, Tom Jones
• Billy Crudup   – Public Enemies, Almost Famous
• Helena Bonham Carter – Terminator 4 Salvation, Harry Potter, Sweeney Todd, The King’s Speech, Alice in Wonderland, Frankenstein, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Howards End, Les Misérables
• Jessica Lange – Broken Flowers, Titus, A Thousand Acres, Sweet Dreams, Frances, Tootsie, The Postman Always Rings Twice
• Marion Cotillard – Nine, Inception, La vie en rose, Public Enemies, A Good Year
• Steve Buscemi – Paris je t’aime, The Sopranos, Romance & Cigarettes, The Island, Twenty-Eight Days, The Big Lebowski, Kansas City, Fargo, Living in Oblivion, Billy Bathgate, Barton Fink, Miller’s Crossing, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs
• Why bought: Ewan McGregor, Helena Bonham-Carter, Tim Burton
• Seen: Twice. First time a couple of years ago. Now: May 26, 2013

It turned out to be a bit of a tearjerker in spite of myself.  It’s a charming film and Ewan McGregor is a sweetheart. Not exactly believable (and I don’t mean the unlikely adventures) but a lovable sweetheart.

His older self in the form of Albert Finney is harder to take.  I sympathize with son Billy Crudup. Finney would drive me crazy too if he was my blabbery story-telling father.  The lovey-dovieness between Finney and Lange is a bit hard to take too.  Helena Bonham-Carter is surprisingly lay-back in this role; good as always but not as outstanding as usual.

But it’s a fun story with a lot of more or less impossible adventures involving more or less unlikely oddball characters that in the end seem to have actually happened with real life oddball people.

There is a moral here, at least one has the slightly annoying feeling throughout the film that there is – but I’m not sure what it is.  Sons, believe in your fathers? I hope not. Everyone, believe in the unlikely? Better.  Believe in the power of story-telling? Better still. I’ll take that one. But a grip on reality is nice too.

3* of 5