It’s easy to forget, but there was a point whenTim Burtonwas considered a truly visionary filmmaker. Directors like John Carpenter are famous for legendary winning streaks with movies. But Burton never gets enough credit for a nearly fifteen-year streak (1985-1999) of one fantastic film after another – notable exception forMars Attacks!butBatman ReturnsandSleepy Holloware great. When people talk about his great films, they often go to movies likeBatman,Beetlejuice, orEdward Scissorhands –he didn’t directThe Nightmare Before Christmas, give Henry Selick the love he deserves–but the one film of his that doesn’t get brought up enough in the conversation is his overlooked 2003 classic,Big Fish.
The third entry in his unofficial “Movies with a Main Character Named Edward” Trilogy,Big Fishhas all the hallmarks that made Burton’s early films memorable, such as stunning imagery, an imaginative premise, a lighthearted and comedic charm, and a score that proves thatDanny Elfman is unstoppablewhen he’s at his best. But while the film has everything that makes Burton’s early films great, it also subverts his traditional protagonist archetype. That being an outsider looking to belong or a stranger in a strange land. Instead, it follows a man who is loved and adored by everyone he comes across, except for one of the people who should love him most: his own son.
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Big Fishtells the story of Will Bloom (Billy Crudup), a man who goes back to his childhood home to see his mother (Jessica Lange) and his estranged ailing father, Edward (Albert Finney). Edward is a verbose individual who loves to tell stories (and, in some ways, fables) about his incredible adventures as a young man (Ewan McGregor).They’re gothic talesinvolving giants, witches, and covert military missions in Korea. These stories have led Will to disconnect from his father, feeling that their fantastical nature is too good to be true, making him feel like he doesn’t know Edward at all. With little time left, Will tries to understand his father better and see if there’s anything worth saving in their relationship.
Where Burton shines, and why many people can identify with his work, is his approach to having stories following outsiders looking to be accepted by a society that can’t understand them. His outcasts can range from Batman trying to fight crime while working outside the law to Ed Wood trying to create films in an industry that constantly rejects him. Even thefish-out-of-watercomedy of Barbara and Adam in the afterlife ofBeetlejuiceor Edward Scissorhands in the brightly-colored suburbs plays into that theme of isolation. This is whereBig Fishdiffers.
Big Fish’s Edward Bloom Is a Jack of All Trades
Edward Bloom isn’t an outsider; he’s a power fantasy, and in everything he does, he excels. It says it right there in the title. A “Big Fish” is an important person or a person of influence. He’s a talented athlete, a successful entrepreneur, a skilled hand-to-hand combatant, a clever problem-solver, a brilliant inventor of Rube Goldberg machines who probably built Pee-wee Herman’s breakfast machine, and most importantly, everyone always immediately takes a liking to him. The latter makes sense, considering the role isEwan McGregorat his most charming. If he’s not an outsider, and everything always eventually goes his way, what’s the problem? The problem is that he can’t get his son’s approval.
The core of the story stems from the powerful father/son dynamic of Edward and Will. More importantly, the arc of Will learning to understand his father. Burton’s films have a track record of themes of paternal abandonment (such as the murder of Bruce Wayne’s parents or the sudden death ofEdward Scissorhands' inventor) and the isolation kids can feel from their parents (like Lydia inBeetlejuiceand Willy Wonka inCharlie and the Chocolate Factory).
Big Fish Features an Outsider in His Own Home
This all likely stems from the alienation Burton felt from his parents, whom he never really connected with. It hits home hardest when you consider he lost both of his parents before filming of the movie began. That emotional connection echoes throughout the film. Starting with Will’s voiceover that claims, “The truth is, I didn’t see anything of myself in my father, and I don’t think he saw anything of himself in me.”
The entire film is about Will’s trials of accepting who his father is. It starts with him resenting Edward for making everything about him while (from Will’s perspective) never letting anyone know who he truly is. This results in them not talking for years. Then, to reconcile before Edward is gone, Will tries to get to know him for who he is, to no avail. He then admits to his wife Joséphine (Marion Cotillard) that he never felt connected with his dad because he was never around when Will was growing up. This resulted in a lack of trust because he always wondered if there was another family or life that Will never knew about.
This was amplified when he came to believe that there wasn’t anybody else; it’s just that his dad found home life boring. However, when he visits Edward’s old friend Jenny (Helena Bonham Carter), Will gains a better understanding. She lets him know that for years, when Edward was away, he was trying to save a small town from the banks, and when given the opportunity to have an affair, he turned her down purely because his wife meant so much to him.
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Knowing that his father is a good man, Will goes home to find that Edward is in the hospital and that things look bleak. It’s in the film’s climax where, on Edward’s deathbed, Will tells him the story of how he goes. Not the mundane and sad true story, but the heartwarming, romantic version that fits in the canon of Edward’s fairytale life.
Instead of Will trying to figure out who his father is, he learns to accept him for his faults and love his fantastical perception of storytelling and, by extension, the world. It’s an incredibly heartwarming finale betweenfather and son, which is more powerful, considering Burton probably didn’t get to experience that moment with his own father, so he experienced it through his characters.
Big Fishis rarely brought up when discussing theupper tier of Tim Burton’s filmography, which is tragic because it’s possibly his best character work. It’s also a beautiful, surprisingly epic tale of a man’s life as told through the unreliable narrative method of oral history and imaginative recollection. It shows the power of a bond between father and son and how one person’s life can affect so many, not to mention the unmatched power of storytelling and how it can turn an ordinary man into a legend.
