Big Eyes (2014) (English Language)

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105min

Cast: Amy Adams, Christoph Waltz, Danny Huston …and more

Writers: Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski

Amy Adams stars as world famous US painter Margaret Keane in a true-life story of her early life as an artist in the 50s and relationship with her conman husband Walter, played by Cristoph Waltz, who claimed credit for her signature “big eyes” work all the way through their divorce and subsequent federal court trial in the 60s.

Unique and visionary director and Keane art collector Tim Burton (Beetlejuice, Sleepy Hollow) dramatically changes gears in the telling of Keane’s early story in ‘Big Eyes’, the film is nearly unrecognizable as a Tim Burton piece in both style and tone and sits somewhere between stylish semi-biographical Ed Wood and any conventional mid-20th century American biopic.

Amy Adams is her usual brilliantly measured self in a performance of a unique woman in a typical situation within a particularly male-dominated era, surely she will again be a strong contender in the upcoming awards season.

Her performance however and the film itself is nearly completely undone by a bizarre and often unintentionally funny performance by Christoph Waltz as Walter Keane.

Having rightly won international acclaim for playing larger-than-life characters in justifiable circumstances in the past, Waltz’s performance seems completely out of place in this film and is at times farcical, even if you look past the German-accented (or at least European) depiction of Walter Keane, a man from Lincoln Nebraska.

The Characters in ‘Big Eyes’ are characterized by a lack of depth despite Adams’s efforts, as is the story at times, despite this the film is a welcome quirky dramatic departure for Tim Burton and there is enough social commentary and critical appraisal of the “American modern art movement” to make it a distinctly enjoyable watch.