Not exactly "It's A Wonderful Life," he still manages to show how all of us - even the little fish - have profound effects on the people around us. Burton deals with mythic themes in "Big Fish." Besides the surface story of the generational tension between father and son he explores the metaphor of the big-fish-in-a-small-pond by examining the impact Ed Bloom has had on the lives he's touched in his workaday contacts with colleagues, customers (he's a traveling salesman), and people in the small towns across the South. And Burton delivers a terrific punchline at the end of the film that left me both tickled and weeping, a truly weird emotional state. In his effort to understand the truth behind his father's stories he learns to love the man as well as the mythology. Originally a true believer, Will now knows everything his father has told him was not just an exageration or even a tall tale but an outright lie. Ed Bloom has spent his life spinning his personal history into mythological proportions: an early encounter with a very tall man becomes a battle with a house-sized giant a rural village is depicted as heaven on earth military service during the Korean War morphs into a behind-the-lines mission that would make Duke Nukem proud. Father and son are reunited as Finney lies dying of cancer. Jessica Lange plays his wife and Billy Crudup plays the son, Will, estranged from his father for the past three years.
Bloom is a metaphorical and literal big fish in the small pond of Ashton, Alabama in this tale told mostly through flashback. Albert Finney and Ewan McGregor share the role of Ed Bloom, one of the big fish from the movie's title while an SUV-sized catfish plays the other. "Big Fish" combines Burton's unusual humor with a heart-wrenching story of a father-son deathbed reconciliation. And there's always the possibility of Danny DeVito chomping down on a raw fish. Will it be "Edward Scissorhands" or "Batman II?" With Burton you could get a quirky comedy, a dark thriller, or sweet morality tale. I approach Tim Burton films with a certain trepidation.
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