The Sunday Tribune

Worth a catch
Ervell E. Menezes

Alison Lohman and Ewan McGregor in Big Fish

Edward Bloom (Albert Finney) has a knack of spinning stories faster than the drop of a hat and this sort of embarrasses his son Will (Billy Crudup). How much of it is truth and how much fiction is anybody’s guess but his audience seems to enjoy them. It is only after Edward is terminally ill and his wife Sandra (Jessica Lange) gets her son Will to reconcile with his dad that the viewer treads the fine line between fact and fiction in Big Fish.

But Big Fish is also about ambition and how some folks cannot stay confined to small ponds. Edward is one of them and a preternatural growing spurt is an excuse for him to pack his bags for pastures anew.

That he has also read that goldfish get bigger in bigger bowls accentuates his travel bug and so he leaves small town Ashton, South Carolina. Thus starts an improbable and mythical journey. Many years and countless adventures later, Bloom is well-known as a teller of tall tales about his colourful life as a less-than-ordinary young man (Ewan McGregor) whose wanderlust took him around the world. His mythical exploits range from the delightful to the surreal, interweaving sagas about giants and werewolves, conjoined Korean lounge singers, a witch with a glass eye and, of course, the big fish that refuses to be caught.

What starts off as a fairly routine story gathers momentum with the conflict between father and son. Director Tim Burton does well to handle it with kid gloves and thus keep the viewer engrossed, moving along two fronts —- the reconciliation and the grey areas of fact and fiction. But it is actually an imaginative script by John August that gives Big Fish its best moments and it looks like Hollywood seems to be rediscovering the art of storytelling.

May be, some of the incidents are outlandish and even avoidable but this doesn’t in any way weaken the narrative. Albert Finney as the crusty but likeable old man more than makes his presence felt and Billy Crudup is convincing as his antagonistic son who has a change of heart. But the talented Jessica Lange is wasted in a minor role and so is Ewan McGregor.

Alison Lohman is effective as the younger Sandra and cameos by Helena Bonham Carter and Danny DeVito are more academic than effective but Danny Elfman’s music that includes an Elvis Presley song provides adequate relief as do the country dances.

It may have its weak moments but the twists and turns in the story more than make up for them. Also, it may not be the biggest fish in the ocean but it surely warrants taking a look at it. You won’t be sorry.