TIM BURTON DIRECTS BIG EYES

year: 2014 rating: *1/2

What BIG EYES has in common with another Tim Burton film, BIG FISH, is that both are based on liars, but only one is a filthy, stinking liar.

The 1950’s is never really shown in a positive light, and hasn't been since… well… the 1950’s. And here we’re reminded that men are the only people who had it good during that era… Especially if they marry well… The man, that is: For in the case of fast talking Walter Keane, played by fast talking two time Oscar winning Christoph Waltz, a strategic partnership earned him a career as a famous artist, "his" work going from galleries to posters to postcards...

Not A Bingo

And those Gothic looking waifs with huge sad eyes are about the only Tim Burton element of a film that, based on a true story, lives up to the chauvinistic time it's based: The woman, Margaret Keane, played by Amy Adams, not only lacks important pivotal screentime but hardly gets a word in edgewise... Which is intentional since she’s stuck with a con artist charlatan using her talent for his fame, and their money. The biggest downside is he’s a plagiarizing jerk and ultimately becomes borderline psychotic…

Yet Christoph Waltz’s performance is so outrageously over-the-top right off the bat, there’s no progressive arc: Instead of going from A to B he starts on a frantic C and never slows down, waxing so much poetic there’s hardly a character visible at all... At least not a realistic one. Just another chance for Waltz to steal a movie that, unlike those paintings, is completely his to have and to hold, and never let go of.