BIG EYES

3.5 stars (out of 5)

Director/producer Tim Burton’s uncharacteristic drama features none of his favourite actors (Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter) and almost no fantasy touches (except for a hallucinatory daydream or two), and offers the true story of Margaret Keane, who was bullied by her near-delusional husband Walter into giving him credit for her hugely popular ‘50s/‘60s paintings that feature those trademark ‘big eyes’.

We begin with Margaret (Amy Adams) leaving an abusive marriage with her daughter and heading for San Francisco in a gigantic period car, and soon she’s meeting the charismatic Walter (Christoph Waltz), going on dates, commencing a whirlwind romance and marrying him. Walter fancies himself a serious artist and turns out cheesy Parisian street scenes while Margaret starts painting a series of figures with strange, distorted eyes, and when the deeply jealous Walter realises her talent and senses that big money can be made, he sets out to convince her that he must take credit for them. After all, he assures her, no one would want to buy work from “lady painters” and only he can do the necessary marketing, but then years pass and the ‘big eyes’ pictures have made huge cash, and Margaret and Walter are living in a fancy LA house, partying with The Beach Boys and increasingly on the rocks, with Margaret finding her voice and standing up to Walter perhaps all too late.

Burton’s first biopic since Ed Wood (back in 1994) is a somewhat straightforward but strongly-played drama offering a fine, quietly furious turn from Adams (who received the thumbs up from the real Margaret) and an equally terrific performance by Waltz, who makes Walter a combination of romantic, hustler and pathetic child. This director’s fanboy devotees (recently overdosed on his Alice In Wonderland, Frankenweenie and Dark Shadows) will surely hate it, but, well, they don’t know anything about art.