Film review: Big Eyes - Tim Burton's artist biopic takes light approach
Truth can be stranger than fiction. And if you don't believe this, consider the outrageous tale, told in Tim Burton's first biopic since 1994's , of the artist behind the sentimental portraits of saucer-eyed children that were ubiquitous in suburban American homes of the mid-20th century.
Starring: Amy Adams, Christoph Waltz
Director: Tim Burton
Category: IIA
Truth can be stranger than fiction. And if you don't believe this, consider the outrageous tale, told in Tim Burton's first biopic since 1994's , of the artist behind the sentimental portraits of saucer-eyed children that were ubiquitous in suburban American homes of the mid-20th century.
Credited for a time to Walter Keane, those pictures beloved by the populace — even while derided by critics as kitsch, or worse — turned out to have been painted by Margaret, Walter's wife from 1955 to 1965.
begins with Margaret (a blonde Amy Adams) walking out on her first husband and driving to San Francisco to begin a new life with her young daughter Jane (played first by Delaney Raye, then as a teenager by Madeleine Arthur). At a time when being a woman — never mind a divorcée with a child — put one at a professional and personal disadvantage, it seemed inevitable that Margaret would seek salvation in another man.
Enter Walter (Christoph Waltz), a silver-tongued property agent with artistic dreams that took him to Europe for a time. While he favours romanticised Paris streetscapes, Margaret focuses on portraits of wide-eyed waifs, for most of which Jane is the model. She takes to signing "Keane" on each one after she and Walter wed — both for the second time — in Hawaii.
