BIG FISH (2003) ***1/2

Reviewed 12/23/03

Ostensibly about a man who tells tall tales and the son who gets sick of it, BIG FISH gains greater significance when viewed as being about a man so in love with life that through his eyes, life looks like fantasy to everyone else. BIG FISH’s great accomplishment is to make Edward Blume’s romance with life infectious. The son, Will (Billy Crudup), and his French wife, Josphine (the luminous Marion Cotillard) are about to have a child of their own, but all Will knows of his father are his tales – how Ed (Ewan McGregor/Albert Finney) was the perfect athlete, student, and entrepreneur who set out to find his destiny. That destiny led him to a witch whose glass eye can foretell one’s death, an outcast giant (Matthew McGrory), a lycanthropic circus ringleader (Danny DeVito), conjoined twins (Ada and Arlene Tai), a poet-turned-bank robber (Steve Buscemi), a missed opportunity named Jenny (Hailey Anne Nelson/Helena Bonham Carter), and finally to the love of his life, Sandra (Jessica Lange and Alison Lohman both play Sandra at different ages and have an uncanny resemblance). Maybe Ewan McGregor (and the other Brits here) can't do a convincing Southern accent, but who cares when the characters are so appealing? Tim Burton’s fantasy scenes are far more interesting than the “reality” scenes, but then again, isn’t that how it should be? The movie lapses into excessive sentimentality only at the very end, but its enthusiastic view of life lingers long afterwards.