Big Fish
Director: Tim Burton
Year Released: 2003
Rating: 1.5
Mawkish story of a man who tries to uncover the truth behind all of his father's seemingly bogus "tall tales" - only to discover, of course, that the stories have their basis in fact. Tim Burton's flights of fancy are nice, and Ewan McGregor's "aww shucks" Americana performance (also summoned in Down With Love) is surprisingly likeable, but instead of trying to weird you out like he did in the past, Burton's now trying to incorporate his surrealist storytelling into a legitimate framework - he's making "serious, emotional cinema." Billy Crudup's austere voice-over reminds me of those Mastercard ads he does - a proper final line for this picture might have been "Life spent with a man who was a symbolic catfish: Priceless."
