Big Eyes (Tim Burton)

[Henry Gale]

IMDb / Wiki

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That is an awful poster.

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That is an awful poster.

Hey, Henry Gale is good people.

[Henry Gale]

Well, I guess I should consider getting out of the poster-designing game I was never in...

But this was really solid.

I've said things to this effect before, but as someone who grew up loving Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Mars Attacks!, probably liked/loved everything Burton did in the aughts between his two big-budget nadirs of Planet of the Apes and Alice In Wonderland (an era where his cultural backlash seemed to arrive in full gear), and didn't catch up with Frankenweenie and Dark Shadows until way too late to realized their commercial underperformances were entirely the fault of people like me who they were so clearly for; Big Eyes is exactly the quiet reminder and delicate re-invigoration of everything I loved about the controlled storytelling and visual pastiche of those early works, all applied to something most resembling his Ed Wood template, with its great true story keeping it wonderfully focused and involving.

It's a bit slight compared to a lot of the other films swinging for the fences this time of year, but very much like Linklater's Bernie, the dedication of performances, the fantastically-seasoned production lineup (particularly the cinematography from Delbonnel, his first time digital, which never seems to hit a not-gorgeous beat) stylistic variation and real-life reflective thrust behind it keeps it fervently alive. Even as both end in courtroom sequences, they both manage to elevate that tired narrative conclusion into two of the more entertaining ones in recent memory. Waltz is just incredible in that last section here.

I don't expect it to set the box office on fire or have huge legs this awards season, but the audience I saw it with clearly gave off a huge crowd-pleaser vibe with it, all the way to the out-of-character-for-Toronto-audiences rounds of applause in moments along the way and at the very end. So I feel like it will definitely find its audience over time, add another lovely annotation to Adams' and Waltz's careers, and remind people what Burton can deliver efficiently when the volume on his (often recently caricaturistic) eccentricities are turned down and applied just right.

*** / 7.8

[Grouchy]

I'm so happy to see a good Tim Burton film I'm tempted to overrate this. It's a solid drama with two excellent performances from the leads - Waltz just kicks it out of the ballpark during the closing courtroom scenes. It's great that both Burton and Elfman going for something more understated here and staying out of the self-caricature they were gradually becoming. This also has a stellar cast. Even very minor roles are filled with the likes of Terrence Stamp and Jason Schwartzman. Who wasn't a bit reminded of Shia LaBeouf as Waltz's character descends into full-fledged psychosis?

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Waltz is absolutely terrible in this. It is a totally misjudged performance from the first second to the last, and I'm not sure what Burton was thinking.