BIG EYES
The Weinstein Company
Reviewed for Shockya by Harvey Karten. Data-based on Rotten Tomatoes.
Grade: B+
Director: Tim Burton
Screenwriter: Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski
Cast: Amy Adams, Krysten Ritter, Christoph Waltz, Jason Schwartzman, Danny Huston, Terence Stamp
Screened at: Review 1, NYC, 12/1/14
Opens: December 25, 2014
I remember standing in line at a bank in Madrid during the 1970s, during the bad old days of Franco’s government. A woman in front of me was cashing her own travelers’ checks. The bank teller asked her for a document from her husband allowing her to take money out of the bank. She insisted that the checks were her own in her name, but the teller was convinced to hand over the cash only when she informed him that she was an American tourist and therefore not bound by the domestic laws of Spain.
Thankfully America never suffered from a Fascist government, but in some ways women’s lives during the 1950s could be compared to those of their gender across the ocean. For example when Margaret Keane (Amy Adams) in Tim Burton’s movie “Big Eyes,” applies for a job in a furniture store, the employment counselor asks whether her husband knows that she intends to spend her weekdays away from home. Only when Margaret states that she is no longer married to her (first) husband does she get a job, painting cute figures on the backs of the chairs and bedposts.
That should have been the worst offense against women like Margaret Keane, but as scripters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (“People vs. Larry Flynt”) point out in making “Big Eyes” a story in female fragility and vulnerability during the most repressive decade of the 20th Century, Margaret is to become exploited for at least a decade. And, alas, she is complicit in her own defeat. Her second husband, Walter Keane (Christoph Waltz), a charming and most effective salesman, becomes guilty of an outrageous fraud that will lead to a judgment of $4 million against him by his then ex-wife. So “Big Eyes” is a story of fraud, outlandish chutzpah, the subjugation of women, and the nature of art.
And “Big Eyes” has anything but a Masterpiece Theater format to get across its points, as director Tim Burton (“Sweeney Todd,” “Batman,” “Edward Scissorhands”) mines the story for comedy as well as pathos while at the same time giving his audience a painless, graphic essay on painting. This biopic is about the creator of the world-famous portraits of weepy, lost children whose big eyes—the mirrors of their souls—sometimes shed tears but are always heart-rending. The paintings are signed “Keane,” which was Margaret’s mistake, because when an opportunity arises, her husband names himself the creator of all the works, even putting his name on a coffee-table book filled with the repetitive paintings.
Director Burton takes us from the first meeting of Walter Keane (Christoph Waltz) and Margaret in an outdoor art exhibit in San Francisco where Walter, exhibiting a number of Paris street scenes, begins flirting with Margaret, who does quick portraits of visitors for a buck or two. Walter brags that he studied in Paris, wines and dines her, sweeps her off her feet, a parable, as it were, for those romances that begin with fireworks and end with mayhem. When Walter, who is hardly a nonentity but a successful people person, talks the owner of a local night club, Enrico Banducci (Jon Pilito) to exhibit Margaret’s paintings of forlorn children in his night club, he begins to take credit for his wife’s work, while Margaret, believing that “lady paintings” will not sell—which may be true—allows her man to do this for ten years.
By 1964, however, a much needed retribution takes place as Margaret becomes her own person, begins painting like Modigliani, and ultimately makes the claim to San Francisco Examiner reporter Dick Nolan (Danny Huston) that she is the artist. All this is not to say that Margaret is a saint. Her life’s work is described by New York Times art critic John Canaday (Terence Stamp) as kitsch, allowing “Big Eyes” to wrest with that ol’ conflict between what is popular but tacky and what is true art and elitist.
“Big Eyes” is graced by a potentially award-winning performance from Amy Adams, arguably the cutest actress in Hollywood today, in the role of a woman who now, at the age of 87, is alive and well and is shown in a brief cameo as well as in an epilogue. Christoph Waltz is delightful for most of his time on the screen, but in a directorial misjudgment goes too far over the top, particularly in a comic courtroom scene but also in a dangerous fight with his wife involving his throwing of matches at her and threatening to have her “whacked.” Effective side roles include those of Terence Stamp as the art critic, Danny Huston as the reporter, Jon Polito as the night club owner, Jason Schwartzman as the owner of an art gallery, James Saito as the judge in Honolulu’s federal court, Madeleine Arthur as Margaret’s teen daughter, and Krysten Ritter as Margaret’s best friend DeAnn. Rick Heinrichs’ production design casts the 1950s look of San Francisco, all set to celluloid by Bruno Delbonnel.
Rated PG-13. 106 minutes. © Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online
Story – B+
Acting – B+
Technical – B
Overall – B+
