Big Fish

REVIEW
After a series of mammoth commercial undertakings like Planet of the Apes, director Burton successfully returns to a more personal (if no less ambitious) project. The central character, the terminally ill Ed Bloom (Finney), is taken to telling fanciful tales when reminiscing about his youth, to the endless frustration of his son (Crudup, in a thanklessly overshadowed role). His legend (whether true or just in his mind) is so large that the bulk of the film is shown in flashback through the charming McGregor, who strikes an uncanny resemblance to Tom Jones-era Finney. It is here that Burton's flights of fancy soar: Ed's WWII paradrop into a USO show featuring conjoined twins; a run-in with a softhearted giant looking for a place to belong; and most hauntingly, his stumbling on a literal ghost town called Spectre that is a wistful mirror image of the perfectly manicured suburbia of Edward Scissorhands. These sequences are so whimsical, so inventive, so magically colorful, that the only quibble is that the more grounded present-day portion can't possibly measure up. Give thanks once again for the wonderful Finney, who animates his bedridden Bloom with a mischievous face and a baritone voice that's full of life.