Director: Tim Burton

Starring: Amy Adams & Christoph Waltz

Running Time: 105 mins

Release date: 25 Dec, 2014

Worldwide Gross: $5,579,981

 

 

Basic Plot:

 

A biopic about painter Margaret Keane (Amy Adams), Big Eyes (2014) opens with Keane and her daughter Jane (Delaney Raye) fleeing Frank, husband to Margaret and father to Jane, and relocating to San Francisco, where Margaret takes a job painting furniture. She soon meets and falls for a charismatic realtor and "Sunday painter" of Parisian street scenes, Walter Keane (Christophe Waltz), who encourages and markets Margaret's signature portraits of children with oversized eyes. When Margaret—a single mother in the 1950s—risks losing her daughter to Frank, Walter proposes marriage. Once Margaret begins signing her paintings "KEANE," Walter passes them as his own, arguing that the market for female art isn't lucrative. Their "Big Eyes" sweep the nation, making the Keanes very rich and Walter very famous, but will Margaret keep their secret, or will their empire crumble?

 

Clock Watching? 18/20

 

Needless to say, Big Eyes covers a long period of time in a short period of time. It's easy to nitpick certain parts as rushed, specifically the dissolution of the Keane's marriage, but such nitpicking is precisely that: nitpicking. Big Eyes isn't slow. It's tight and compact.

 

Lights, Camera, Direction? 16/20

 

Tim Burton's name appears four times during the opening of Big Eyes. It's very much a Tim Burton movie, as well as a movie about Tim Burton, the story of an artist going through a divorce from a director recently separated from his actress wife. It's also a metaphor for Burton's artistic integrity, his struggle between the art and commerce of the cinema.

 

In these ways and more, Big Eyes is a movie of ideas—about the roles of women, artists, and art—, one that looks different from, yet the same as other Burton movies. It's a beautiful, colorful, almost painterly movie about a woman trapped, and while it's not All That Heaven Allows (1955), or even Far From Heaven (2002), it's a step up from some of Burton's more recent work.

 

Oscar Performances? 16/20

 

If we look back at Burton's work, Big Eyes is a movie that recalls Ed Wood (1994), another biopic about an artist's life in the 1950s. (Screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski are obviously interested in popular art, having written Ed Wood and Big Eyes for Burton, as well as The People vs. Larry Flynt [1996] and Man on the Moon [1999] for Milos Forman.) If Big Eyes shares one formal aspect with Ed Wood, it's noteworthy performances in a Burton movie, though not as much. (There just isn't as much of an ensemble.) Amy Adams somehow embodies Margaret Keane, a quiet woman who's admittedly "normal," yet whom Adams latches onto entirely. If someone—like myself—wasn't a fan of Adams before, they could be now—as I am.

 

On the opposite end of the spectrum from Adams' Margaret, Christoph Waltz plays another of his charming villains, Walter, where the emphasis is not on his eyes—as with Margaret—but his mouth, both its talking and his large, deceptive, clown-like grin. Waltz is great as Walter, but he really stumbles through a few scenes, specifically a drunken argument between himself and Margaret. (The fault in that specific scene, though, lies not just in his performance, but also its writing, staging, and pacing.)

 

Tell a Friend? 16/20

 

In all, it could be very easy for a lot of people to dislike Big Eyes, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Burton, as one might expect, makes the story as accessible and universal as possible. One doesn't need an art history degree to "get" the movie and its themes, or in-jokes like Margaret buying a can of Campbell's soup as she contemplates her husband's and her art's popularity.

 

Again? 13/20

 

Big Eyes is a movie that's easy to step into and likely step back into, though once you see it, you "get" it. You could see it again, but why? Except for Adams, there isn't much that makes this movie worth revisiting, unlike some of the other great movies of the year, or even Burton's greatest hits.

 

Total: 79%

 

Burton delivers a solid picture, and one that many will enjoy.

 

by Scotty Barnhart