Big Eyes - film review: 'A lovely change of pace for director Tim Burton'

Tim Burton directs Amy Adams in this nimble, often distressing biopic about the American artist Margaret Keane
Big lie: Amy Adams plays Margaret Keane, whose husband Walter passed off her art as his own
Charlotte O'Sullivan19 December 2014

This is a nimble, often distressing biopic about the American artist Margaret Keane — best known for her kitschy portraits of children and kittens — that represents a lovely change of pace for tent-pole king Tim Burton. Amy Adams is Margaret, a single mum in Fifties America who meets a fellow artist, Walter (Christoph Waltz). He says he likes her daughter and praises Margaret’s paintings; he’s so keen on them, in fact, that when an opportunity arises to sell them, he passes them off as his own. By this point, Walter and Margaret are married. As long as the paintings are selling, what does it matter?

The story of how the eccentric Margaret is bamboozled by her husband touches on many themes close to Burton’s heart. Walter — a charismatic huckster and iconoclast — is a down-to-earth version of Sweeney Todd and/or Beetlejuice. Margaret, with her tunnel vision and innocent indifference to high-brow taste, is a variant on Ed Wood.

It’s somehow perfect, meanwhile, that our narrator (Danny Huston) is a newspaper hack. There’s no voice of authority to helm this yarn (Terence Stamp has a hilarious cameo as astute art critic, John Canaday, but the latter’s judgments carry no definitive weight).

Big eyes are magnetic. Burton fills the screen with actresses whose orbs are naturally humungous (Krysten Ritter, Fiona Vroom, both of whom, by the way, resemble Burton’s one-time muse, Lisa Marie).

Is Keane’s art grotesque? Or is it gorgeous? The film, with a flourish, insists that the answer to both questions is yes.

Out on Boxing Day

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