Review of Big Eyes (2014) by Kelly H — 25 Aug 2016

I was actually acquainted with Margaret and Walter Keane at the height of their fame in 1963, when their daughter was a school friend and we were often in their home. I was naturally looking forward to this movie, and though there is much to be admired, there is so much more that is missing.

The flaw begins with the writing and acting of the two principals, who have been drained of their interest and eccentricities. Margaret in reality is a lovely, fragile woman, given to magical thinking and was something of a "flower child" before the term was coined.

As played by Amy Adams, however, she is a blank-faced cypher, dutifully painting waifs under her husband's tyrannical direction. No hint is given as to the haunted woman within, who is compelled to paint this same sad-eyed face, over and over and over again in various costumes and settings.

Likewise, Christopher Waltz plays Walter as a loud-mouthed, self-promoting buffoon, giving a sort of Dick Van Dyke performance throughout. In reality, though Keane was smarmy and abrasive. Only one scary scene hints at the horrors of that household.

(After a dinner party now-famous among my friends, our car stalled in the Keane driveway and we overheard a fight more horrific than anything in the movie.) An attempt is made to turn Margaret into a feminist hero when she at last stands up forself, but even that is passive.

The Keane fad was strange, sudden, everywhere at once, and this film also fails to capture that Finally, the most famous scene in their story was the court trial where they were both directed by a judge to produce a Keane painting to determine which of them was the true artist.

Too much this is taken up with Christopher Waltz doing a comic routine playing his own defense lawyer. As it turs out, the most dramatic moment of their lives appears to have been Margaret passively painting yet another sad eyed waif.