A Great Father's Legacy --- Film review of Big Fish

Big Fish is a 2003 movie based on the novel of the same name by Daniel Wallace.  The film was directed by Tim Burton, and stared Albert Finney, Ewan McGregor, and Billy Crudup. The film depicts a heartwarming story of reconciliation between a dying father and his journalist son. The father, Edward Bloom, is a sociable, passionate man; he loves to tell the stories in his life, fancy and extravagant stories that seemed nonsense to his son, Will Bloom. Only after Edward had cancer and on his deathbed, Will started to learn more about his father and tried to understand him. In the end, Will made it, and his father died peacefully with deep love and respect from his son. This movie was considered Tim Burton's best work, has received many good reviews after release and won many nominations for mainstream awards including the Golden Globe and the Oscar.

Movie poster

The film starts with the father Edward's voice, telling his son an enchanting story of how he tried to catch an uncatchable big fish with his wedding ring in the bed. With time, and moving on, the father continued to tell fancy stories on different occasions: occasions ranging from his son's birthday party to his wedding party. However, Edward's stories, which certainly entertained all the audiences, could never attract Will since he had heard the same old stories a million times. From Will's perspective, his father was never true to him, in his words, he is like "Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny combined,  just as charming, and just as fake." So he began to hate his father. After a severe argument, they stopped talking with each other over a period of three years, until Edward was dying of cancer. Will returned home with his wife to take care of his father. In Edward's last days, he was still a storyteller, telling the adventures and extraordinary characters he met in his life: he saw how he was going to die in a witch's glass eye when he was a boy; he found the town he was living in too small for his ambition, so he decided to leave and explore the larger world with a giant man whose name was Karl; he took the road to the outside which was less travelled and unexpectedly found a mysterious town named Specter, where people enjoy their life there going barefoot; he worked in a circus for three years, the circus owner Amos was actually a werewolf; he fell in love with a girl at first sight and finally made her his wife; he parachuted to Korea in the wartime and met a Siamese conjoined twins, and started a wonderful journey with the twins. Still, Will can't accept these stories, he asked his father to tell him the truth and be "himself", but Edward replied angrily "I' ve been nothing but myself since I was born, if you can't see it, it's your failing, not mine." Will decided to search for the "hidden truth" about his father and happened to find Jenny, the woman who he suspected his father had an affair with but, through Jenny, Will learned more about his father and gradually started to understand him. Finally, when Edward was approaching the end of his life, and asked Will "how it happens", Will created an exciting and wonderful story for him, neglecting reality: including all the interesting and extraordinary characters that appeared in the "old stories" and Edward departed peacefully.

In his father's funeral, Will was surprised to find that not a single character appeared in his father's stories was completely fabricated--they were just exaggerated. At the end of the film, Will has his own son, and he passes on Edward's stories to his son.

A scene of the movie

I have to admit I was deeply touched by this film: not only by all the fascinating stories, but also by Edward's great personality and his attitude toward life: he is such a courageous man who has great love for his family, and filled  his life with passion, imagination and color. We all tend to believe that a loving parent should be honest, telling the truth instead of "beautiful lies". Fairy tales are for children, when they grow up, fancy stories that used to appeal to them become disgusting. It seems that fairy tales are not needed in the world of adults. But Edward is completely offbeat, he loves strange stories all his life, as a matter of fact, he is such a brilliant storyteller that he becomes the story. Did Edward misremember some details so the stories become extravagant? Or, did Edward create the stories intentionally, because he knew that the truth was too boring, so he decided to rewrite the book of his life and determined to make everyone marvel at it? I don't know. What I can see is that he led a much more splendid life than others.

I have to say, Edward is a hero, and he chose a lifetime of adventure instead of a plain and dull life; he left his son with the most precious legacy: a colorful way of seeing the world. This made him the best father in the world.

Good stories will be passed from generation to generation, so the storyteller will never be forgotten. The greatest love is most likely to be found in those fancy and seemingly unreal stories, not in the bare bones truth.

Life is hard, why is it so serious too?