Tim Burton Big Fish Analysis

Dead Sexist Fish Crap: A Film Review of Tim Burton’s Big Fish Big Fish shows Will (Billy Crudup) trying to discern whether his father’s fantastic stories are true, or if he was having an affair on his mother. Throughout Will’s life, his father, Edward Bloom (Ewan McGregor and Albert Finney) has told him absurd stories from his life. While Will was enchanted with these stories as a small child, he now holds an extreme amount of resentment towards his father and suspects him of having an affair on his mother. Ed tells many stories of the interesting men that he met in his life and all of his exciting adventures with them. He also tells the story of how he consistently harassed his soon-to-be wife Sandra (Jessica Lange and Alison Lohman), until …show more content…
Most of the story centers around the life of Ed and all the amazing things he has done. All of the other characters love him, even if they have no reason to: the only character not completely infatuated with Ed is his son, Will. Although, Will did have major character development in which he gains a new respect for his father. There are also many interesting side characters; these characters add to the plot and have their own conflicts and interesting personalities. An example is the character of Norther Winslow, a poet who Ed meets on one of his adventures. When Ed first meets him, he has no will to do anything with his life. Later on when Ed sees him again, Norther had decided to leave the town because of Ed and started a life of crime. Again, Ed changes his mind and Norther goes to Wall street and becomes rich. This is an example of one of the interesting story arcs of the many male characters. Overall, the male characters are important to the plot and they respectfully work together with the other male characters to make the …show more content…
An example of this is Jenny; a girl that Ed meets as a young man. Although Ed shows no attraction to the young girl at this time, it is obvious that Jenny has a crush on him. Later in his life, Ed meets Jenny again; this time she is an young woman living on her own. Ed spends lots of time with Jenny and neglects his own wife and child. Ed causes Jenny to believe that he is romantically interested in her and she falls in love with him. This goes on for a long time until Jenny actually tries to kiss Ed and he finally tells her that he values his wife more than her. Jenny is devastated by this news, but she allows Ed to do as he wants. Many years later, Will tracks Jenny down to try to prove his father was having an affair. When he arrives he sees that Jenny is living in a dilapidated house that has gone through much neglect. Will learns his father did not have an affair, and it is shown that almost the entirety of Jenny’s life has been focused on Ed in some way. Overall, the only reason for the female characters to be in the movie is to be love interests. In conclusion, Big Fish has an amazing story with lots of great male characters, yet the movie is hurt greatly by its portrayal of women. None of the female characters change whatsoever or have any importance to the plot. The only reason the women are in the movie is to be in love with