Review of Big Eyes (2014) by Dan S — 14 Jan 2015

When seeing a biopic, I'm interested in two things: a rendition of the story at hand that's interesting regardless of whether the viewer knows the story, and a compelling piece of cinema that stands on its own two feet, with something to say over and above the simple story being told.

Sadly, Big Eyes fails on both counts for me. Knowing even the broad strokes of the story removed all suspense from the narrative, leaving me to admire Amy Adams' ability to breathe life into bland material and shake my head at the woeful miscasting of Christoph Waltz, whose American accent and speech performance were of course more than comprehensible but by no means passing muster as that of a native speaker -- he was best near the bottom of his range, murmuring and purring, but when it came time for apoplectic rage (which the script called for numerous times) his energy became diffuse and his delivery stilted and unnatural. I know he is capable of a performance that is worlds better, and I lay the fault squarely at Tim Burton's feet, who to my mind was more interested in the eye-popping production design than directing his actors well and giving life to a script which was boilerplate biopic at best.