Movie Reviews

Big Fish Movie Review

Read a book review online (click here to search reviews)

Actors: Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Billy Crudup, Jessica Lange, Helena Bonham Carter, Danny DeVito, Steve Buscemi, Robert Guillaume

Review Summary and Plot Commentary about Big Fish
Ed was always bigger than life to all his friends, always telling one story after another. His son grew up resenting the constant stories, always feeling like he never really knew his father because he never answered any question without telling a story. He thought the stories were all baloney. One day he receives word his father is dying of cancer. Maybe its time to put bad feelings aside and try to mend fences with his father. This time maybe he should listen to those stories. --BethG, Resident Scholar
Edward Bloom has enchanted many with the stories of his life. His son, William, now grown up, has grown tired of them. Now his father is dying, and must come to grips and see him for some final talks with him. We then see his stories in many flashbacks while coming back to reality. The young Edward made friends with a giant, found the perfect town but refused to stay, fought in the Korean War, and the list of stories go on and on. The most beautiful story in the film is when Edward meets the love of his life, Sandra. Time stops, and Edward agrees to work in the circus to find out where she lives. Crested sapwood supportable noradrenaline runout. --Estefan Ellison, Resident Scholar
Will Bloom (Billy Crudup) has been estranged from his father, Edward Bloom (Albert Finney), for quite some time. Living in France with his pregnant wife, Will hurries home when his mother (Jessica Lange) tells him that his father is dying and that it is only a matter of time. Will tries to have some serious conversations with his father about who he really is, but all he can get out of him are these tall tales that used to entertain Will when he was a child, but now that he is grown up, he doesn't believe in them anymore. There are stories about a young Edward Bloom (Ewan McGregor) having the golden touch in his small hometown and winning at everything. Stories of how he lured a giant out of town and fought his way through a swamp to a forgotten Eden of a town. Stories of how he worked for the circus and won the information about the girl he fell in love with at first sight. So many stories, but all of them so fantastical that they simply couldn't be true! But as his father continues to slip away, Will comes to realize that there is some truth in every story and that, given the choice, wouldn't we all prefer the story with a little bit of magic woven in...? Big Fish was an unexpectedly charming drama that was not quite as fantastical as I envisioned given the previews. It is very much a father/son relationship movie and it was sweet to see both the father and the son come to some important realizations in the film. The Blooms are a very loving family and Will's parents were still madly in love when he died, which is so refreshing to see in a film these days. Of course, we see Edward Burton's touch mostly in the flashbacks where Ewan McGregor plays Edward Bloom as he has so many amazing adventures and these sequences really added to the film and made it something special instead of commonplace. If you are looking for a sweet little drama with a touch of something different, then this is a wonderful film with a great cast that will make you laugh and cry - take the whole family! --Debbie, Resident Scholar
Ed Bloom (Finney), elderly Alabama gentleman, is dying. Everybody likes Ed because he tells such great stories; everybody, that is, except his son Will (Crudup) who is a UPA correspondent and finds his father's endless tales irritating. Now that Ed is dying, Will returns from his job in Paris with a pregnant French wife in tow, hoping to get "the truth" out of his long estranged father at last. But the stories keep on coming -- about a giant catfish caught with a wedding ring, a witch in whose glass eye you can view your eventual death, a hidden town where everyone is happy and everything's perfect, a poet who turns bank robber after 12 years of writer's block and eventually becomes a Wall Street tycoon, a parachute jump into the Korean War that lands in a North Korean USO show and results in rescue of and by a pair of attached Siamese-twin torch singers -- and in piecing together the tales, accounts from other folks, and a few scraps of documentary evidence, Will comes to understand his father's achievements and failures. McGregor plays young Ed Bloom in the extensive story-flashbacks, Lange is his wife, and DeVito a cheerful werewolf who owns a circus. Tim Burton's sweet and sentimental 2003 offering is charmingly oddball -- a sort of Wizard of Oz for today -- if stronger on visual effects than story. --David Loftus, Resident Scholar

Analysis of Big Fish

Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about
books by breaking them down into many different literary
elements, all of which are searchable (click here).

Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Time/era of movie: - present (2000-2010)
Family, struggling with Yes
Struggle with: - Father
Inner struggle or disability Yes
Struggle with - search for family/history
Coping with loss of loved one? Yes

Main Character
Identity: - Male
Age: - 20's-30's
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events? Yes
Hair color? - brunette (Black)
Hair type - (man) short/standard straight
Body type - (man) average
Events of movie makes character more... - happy
Ethnicity/Nationality - White (American)
How sensitive is this character? - sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor? - Strong but gentle sense of humor
Intelligence - Average intelligence
Physique - very athletic - average physique

Secondary Main Character
Identity: - Male
Hair color - white/grey
Hair style - (man) short/standard wavey
Body type - (man) average build - (man) fat
How much in movie? - 40%
Ethnicity/Nationality - White (American)

Main Adversary
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in: - 40%

Setting
United States Yes
The US: - Southeast - Deep South
Small town? Yes
Small town people: - nice, like Andy/Opie/Aunt Bee

Style
Accounts of torture and death? - generic/vague references to death/punishment
Movie makes you feel... - very happy
Any profanity? - Occasional swearing
Is this movie based on a - book

Most similar reviews by Gordonator ranking
Fly Away Home starring Anna Paquin, Jeff Daniels
The Royal Tenenbaums starring Gene Hackman, Gwyneth Paltrow, Luke Wilson, Owen Wilson, Anjelica Huston, Ben Stiller, Seymour Cassel, Bill Murray, Danny Glover
Nothing in Common starring Tom Hanks, Jackie Gleason
Angel Eyes starring Jennifer Lopez, Jim Cazievel, S�nia Braga.
Life is Sweet starring Jim Broadbent, Alison Steadman, Timothy Spall, Stephen Rea, Jane Horrocks, Claire Skinner

Big Fish Message Board (click here)
Movie talk: favorite scenes, what to buy, favorite online
posters, movies for sale on dvd v. rentals.

Search for another movie

Resident Scholar Profiles

TOP SCHOLAR:

Estefan Ellison

SCHOLARS: Debbie David Loftus BethG

Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s).

Click here to bribe
your congressman

Use our site!
Feedback
About us

Most recent discussions:

General Movie Talk
Dating Advice
Blade Runner
Smokey and the Bandit
Was Harrison Ford on Tranquilizers or an Actor's Strike When Filming Blade Runner?
Clash of the Titans
Bye Bye Birdie
No Good Deed
The 13th Warrior
A Boy and His Dog
Boomerang
Alien Hunter