Review of Big Eyes (2014) by Tim D — 26 Dec 2014

BIG EYES is yet another biographical drama in 2014--a year already terribly crowded with these stories. It is directed by Tim Burton and stars Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz. The film, focuses on American artist Margaret Keane (Adams), whose work was fraudulently claimed in the 1950s and 1960s by her then-husband, Walter Keane (Waltz). It follows their life and marriage, including the story of their heated divorce trial wherein Margaret accused Walter of stealing her paintings.

The movie is a compelling story on paper--a struggling artist Margaret is a single mother and desperate to make ends meet. Her kitschy style of painting waif-like children with oversized eyes goes unnoticed until she connects with Walter--whose ability to sell and market nearly anything begins to work in her favor. Adams plays Margaret as a fairly powerless woman--trapped and co-dependent on Walter. Rather than being sympathetic, her vulnerable woman act becomes tiresome midway through the film. Adams is not a stranger to these type of naive "victim" roles (ENCHANTED, DOUBT, JULIE AND JULIA, TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE) and here she brings absolutely nothing else beyond the same said misty doe-eyed glance to this role. Instead, her Margaret is just a shell of a woman--without much to even offer to explain the how or why behind her "Big Eyes" creations. However, Waltz offers the necessary braggadocio to create a truly insensitive cad. Though Walter starts out as a bit of a greedy salesman with swagger, soon his true colors reveal themselves in a far more sinister fashion. Waltz chews up every scene he is in, leaving Adams silenced throughout. And though that is certainly part of the Keane story, Adams simply cannot share the screen with as powerful a character or performance. The film follows as Walter takes Margaret's work--calling it his own--and sells it to art galleries, celebrities, and even dignitaries across the globe. Not content with that, Walter begins to print and reprint the works until they are sold as postcards in gas stations and posters in grocery stores. The work--tasteless as it is--becomes a story of itself, over saturating the market and frustrating the art world. Terence Stamp has a nice turn as a grumpy art critic, and Jason Schwartzman as an equally stuffy gallery owner--both of which are surprised and irritated by the success of the "Big Eyes" phenomenon.

However, BIG EYES is painted a bit too much by the numbers. The story never really goes beyond the biopic template, and the journey is fairly straightforward. The biggest reward here is Waltz with his Jekyll/Hyde portrayal of Walter--romantic in one moment and sneering the next. The best news here is that director Tim Burton seems to have left behind his dark and angsty period that has plagued his filmorgraphy like a gothic stain over the past dozen years. Easily his most mature work since BIG FISH, this film is also the first time Burton leaves his stable of actors behind and works with an all original cast since 1988. It is clear that Burton has it in him to craft a more familiar and mainstream tale. Sadly, looking ahead to future projects, it seems Burton cannot get enough of the over-stylized films that look like they walked out of a Hot Topic store. But it is a nice turn here for a director whose best work lies outside of the niche he has chosen for himself. Even this pedestrian film still sits above nearly everything this director has done in a dozen years--as mediocre as it is.