Big Eyes (2014)

Directed by: Tim Burton
Country: USA

Movie Review: “Big Eyes” marks a changing in Tim Burton’s style and this fact brought some freshness to a career that, despite valuable, was relying in the same plot strategies and visual elements. Dropping the former graphical style, many times supported on the fantasy, darkness and horror of his stories, Burton brings us a biopic about the painter Margaret Keane whose work received great notoriety in the 50’s but was credited to her fraudulent husband, Walter. Played brilliantly by Christoph Waltz and Amy Adams, the couple comes to a legal dispute for the authorship of the painting series that are characterized by the oversized eyes of its subjects, after having put an end to a 10-year marriage in 1965. Until this time, the submissive wife had always backed up her fraudulent husband against her will. Written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, who already had written “Ed Wood”, the film was presented in colorful images, always with a comedic tone that frequently swallows entirely the dramatic side. Maybe this was the biggest issue of “Big Eyes”, in addition to an overdone court trial that was more silly than funny. Regardless these aspects, I found Burton’s conventional move acceptable, not only because I had the chance to know the real story it tells, but also because he boldly opted to turn a presumable biographical drama into a deliberately feel-good tribute to the real painter who still lives at the age of 87. Waltz gives a damn-good performance, impersonating an expert in the art of cunning, and deceiving for his own merit and glory.