Stars: Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Billy Crudup, Jessica Lange, Alison Lohman, Helena Bonham-Carter, Robert Guillaume, Marion Cotillard

Director: Tim Burton

Summary: Edward Bloom has always told tall tales of his life, charming everyone apart from his son Will. When Will's mother Sandra tries to bring the pair back together, Will must try and learn what parts of his father's epic tales of giants, witches and blizzards are fact and which are fiction.

In Tim Burton's family film BIG FISH, a wonderful storyteller named Edward Bloom (Albert Finney), who lives in a small town in Alabama, recounts tall tales of his wild worldly adventures. These are shown in flashback with Ewan McGregor playing the young Bloom. Wonderful special effects and vibrant colours that pop off the screen make this Burton film a much sunnier experience than his macabre gems EDWARD SCISSORHANDS and BEETLEJUICE. Yet his signature quirky artistry is unmistakable, and the movie benefits from crisp production values and a loveable, bizarre cast of characters.
Told through a series of vignettes, Bloom's stories involve a witch, a giant, a haunted forest, and yes, a big fish. A self-described small-town hero, Bloom explains how he left home at 18 determined to experience anything and everything life could dish out. He worked for the circus, took on daring assignments as a WWII soldier, and rambled across the country as a zany travelling salesman. Utterly unbelievable yet magical and delightful, Bloom's stories just don't translate to his son Will (Billy Crudup) who wants to know his dad's "true" life story. But little by little--through increasingly outlandish tales at which Will cannot resist smirking--the two begin to understand each other, and Bloom weaves his stories into their genealogical fabric.

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After a string of mediocre movies, director Tim Burton regains his footing as he shifts from macabre fairy tales to southern tall tales. Big Fishtwines in and out of the oversized stories of Edward Bloom, played as a young man by Ewan McGregor and as a dying father by Albert Finney. Edward's son Will (Billy Crudup) sits by his father's bedside but has little patience with the old man's fables, because he feels these stories have kept him from knowing who his father really is. Burton dives into Bloom's imagination with zest, sending the determined young man into haunted woods, an idealised southern town, a travelling circus and much more. The result is sweet but--thanks to the director's dark and clever sensibility--never saccharine. The film also features Jessica Lange, Alison Lohman, Helena Bonham Carter, Danny DeVito and Steve Buscemi. --Bret Fetzer

Aspect Ratio:	1.85 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Tim Burton Audio Commentary, Edward Bloom At Large, Amos At The Circus, Fathers And Sons, Tim Burton Storyteller, A Fairytale World, Creature Features, The Authors Journey, The Finer Points A Tim Burton Trivia Quiz, Trailers
Subtitles:	Arabic, Bulgarian, Croatian, Danish, English, Finnish, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Serbian, Slovenian, Swedish
Year:	2003
Release Date:	June 7, 2004
Runtime:	120 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	C D R 34933
Keywords:	Big, Comedy, General, Fantasy, Fish, Drama
Genre:	Drama