Big Eyes
Director: Tim Burton
Year Released: 2014
Rating: 1.0
After leaving Husband #1 with her daughter in tow, artist Margaret (Amy Adams) goes to San Francisco to get a job and sell her paintings at art fairs but soon meets and marries the too-charming Walter Keane (Christoph Waltz), who also fancies himself a painter: before Margaret knows it, Walter is selling her work but claiming he's the auteur. There's more than a little off about this, and it goes beyond Waltz's tacky scene-chewing (he's better controlled by Tarantino than Burton): why would Margaret Keane, a woman who had the gumption to leave her first spouse (in a time when that was forbidden) tolerate the abuse and cruelty of Walter for so long? She turns into a weakling when Walter starts doing his salesman pitch and grins ear-to-ear: wouldn't a true artist rather burn the canvases than allow someone else to take credit for them? Burton can't address these issues: he's too dazzled by paintings of sad kids with hyperthyroidism.
