Big Fish

Tim Burton has quite a mixed CV. When things come together, it can be great. Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Edward Scissorhands are wonderful. When things don't quite work, they are at least interesting, such as Batman (the best Batman film yet), or Mars Attacks!. Or they can be awful, like the remake of Planet of the Apes, a film with the only redeeming feature being Rick Baker's ape make-up and costume.

Big Fish is a very good Tim Burton movie, fortunately. It's adapted from a book, and tells the story of Edward Bloom, a teller of tall tales, including the story of the big fish of the title. Albert Finney plays the older Bloom, near the end of his life, as his son (Crudup) tries to reconcile the life of a man he doesn't know, as the father wasn't round much when he was growing up, and loved to tell his son his yarns when he did see him.

Ewan McGregor plays the younger Bloom in the flashbacks to the fantastical stories that make up his life. Watching the film, you can only imagine Burton making it, with his deft handle on reality and fantasy, mixing both effortlessly and gracefully. We meet giants and a witch, a town where the people don't wear shoes, and where true love lasts forever and a day. The stories themselves are utterly beguiling, as is the central story of a son trying to understand and connect with his father as he himself is about to become a father.

Big Fish refers to many things: an actual fish in the story of the birth of Bloom's son, believed to be a ghost; the exaggerated stories told by anglers of the fish that got away ("The fish was this big."); and the character of Bloom himself, a big fish in a small pond of an American town, who believes himself too small for the confines for his own life. It also relates to how the telling of a story enriches it and makes it real and makes it last longer than the event itself, which is something the film does very well too. Well acted, well directed, and well told, it is a lovely tale itself, which seems fitting.

Rating: DAVE