I bought Big Fish on DVD today. It was one of those half-impulse buys. I say half impulse because I had wanted to see the movie when it came out back in January--it looked like the kind of movie I would really enjoy and connect with. I heard generally good reviews, and when I was in Best Buy this afternoon, I saw it on the rack. A voice in my head said "you know, before you buy this, maybe we should rent it or something first to make sure it's worth buying."

Understand, I try to be frugal with my DVD purchases. Not for lack of wanting DVD's, but I've never been crazy about buying a DVD that I'll only end up watching once; I'd prefer to buy the movies I realy enjoy, the ones I'd want to keep watching over and over.

So I bought the movie and I watched it when I came home. It wasn't the utter catharic experience I hoped it would be--I knew it wouldn't--but it started out very promising. Certainly one of Tim burton's stronger directorial efforts, and the color palate is wonderful; exquistie cinematography.

The problem is the story all falls apart at the end. Get ready for spoilers:

The plot of the movie is that father and son do not get along. Edward Bloom, the father, is an enganing racentour. The problem is, his stories are so amazingly exaggerated, they can't possibly be true. People enjoy them nonetheless, because they see the truth within the fictions, and all is well and good except for the son, William, who can't get past the fiction. He's desperate to find out the "truth" abouthis father so he can find--or perhaps regain--a connection to his father he regards as a stranger.

Why William wants to find this connection is never clear--and. unfortunately, this isn't the point of the movie. The movie is really about Edward Bloom and his version of his life. It's standard Tim Burton territory. And Burton's become more adept at showing us these things--there are fantastic sequences aplenty, like the best tall tales, seamlessly integrated with "real" life; you never get the surreal feeling you do with Edward Scissocrhands or Beetlejuice. The problem is this means that Edward Bloom is the only character with any real depth and humanity (Helena Bonham Carter's Jennifer comes close, though I think that has more to do with her acting skills than the script). and this is what causes trouble at the end.

And what you have at the end is this: , Edward is dying in the hospital, but he refuses to die that way. So, reaching some epiphany, William realizes his father must die as he lived--as a tall tale. So in a sequence that is admittedly full of pathos, William describes to his father his fantastical death. And, just to hammer the point of the movie home in case you missed the hammer in the previous 110 minutes, Edwards funeral is attended by all the amazing and supposedly imaginary characters he knew in his life.

You'd think this would be a wonderful poignant ending, and I suppose on one level it is. The problem is it's utterly hollow. Because you have no payoff between father and son. Yes, William finally realizes that Edward isn't someone who uses fictions to reveal rather than decieve. But what they reveal isn't very clear--and they should be; at the very least it should be clear for his son, who has heard the same stories countless times and doesn't find them endearing at all. William spends the entire movie almost beligerently attacking his fathers fictions. Even at his father's deathbed, when William finally learns the "true" (and utterly mundane) story of his birth, he comments that he prefers the true story to the fanicful one Edward has always told. Why then the sudden change of heart? What does he realize?Thoughout the entire movie, Edward stubbornly refuses to give his son what he wants, give him any reason for his son to trust him. Yet at the end the son has a change a heart just because his father acts as stubbornly as he has throughout his life?

It seems as if the idea is that William comes to this epiphany as he begins telling the story of his father's death. If that's the case, then it's a sequence Burton failed at spectacularly. What starts out as a tender moment between father and son devolves into yet another tall tale. Which then makes me wonder what was the point of having the father/son estrangement at all? Obviously it was the maguffin used to tell the story, but with William's acceptance of his fathers story, those stories lose context--there is no "reality" to contrast it to.

The irony is that Burton became as enraptured with Edward's stories as so many others, and by doing so, does exactly what Edward does--he ignores the son, the person who should be the most important character in the movie. By ignoring William, the movie loses its true realism--not the "reality" of Edwards tall tales, but the very humanity the movie was supposed to be celebrating.

Movies are fictions themselves, and the best movies are the ones, like Edwards tales, that give you the truth even if told in a fiction. By surrendering completely to the fictions of Edwards Bloom, by bringing all the fantastical characters to the funeral, the implication is the fictions aren't fictions at all, and that defeats the essence of Edward Bloom. It defeats the very realization that William is supposed to come to--that the audience is supposed to have. The movie is reduced from tangible poignancy to simple whimsy. It's an ending unworthy of the rest of the movie. Worse, it's an ending unworthy of Edward Bloom.