Movie Review: Big Fish

By Sophia Fang (Canadian Immigrant from China)

Title: Big Fish

Directed by: Tim Burton

Actors: Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Jessica Lange

In 'Big Fish' we meet Edward Bloom, an old man who prefers to tell of his experiences with imagination that he has built with tales in the past decades. He likes to tell these stories not only for entertaining his listeners, but also enjoys living in the fictional world he builds. His friends and his wife love to hear the magic stories but his son doesn’t like.

In the movie, one of the most interesting elements is the conflict between Edward and his son, William Bloom. William is a reporter and he likes to present the truth to the public. However, his father is extremely opposite. He thinks his father is telling lies to the mass and is always exaggerating. William wants to change his father’s mind but fails. Because Edward is unwilling to change the truth and he keeps retelling the fables as before. Actually, the plot in the film is very simple but why so many people are attracted? Most of us like William, when we are young children; we think that our parent figure is bigger than life itself. As years pass by, the imagination begins to fade and eventually, we learn the truth that they are not perfect as we think and we just want to be told the truth. In the film, William remembers every word of the stories he father tells, we can easy to understand why he is so angry at his father and the constant telling deprives him of the chance to know the real father.

Another thing that I like to talk about this movie is the fact that it left enough space for the possibility that Edward might tell the truth before he died. There's a chance he just might as grand as his fables might suggest but the idea is never confirmed nor denied. It leaves the decision to the audience to choose which side they prefer to be on. There are some stories with simple details which make people stop and think about how accurate Edward's stories are. We learn that some parts of Edward's stories are indeed true, but many of them are left unanswered which is the best way to leave things... allowing the audience to accept or reject them for their own reasons.