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- 2014
- PG-13
- The Weinstein Company
- 1 h 46 m
- 2014
- PG-13
- The Weinstein Company
- 1 h 46 m
Summary Big Eyes is based on the true story of Walter Keane (Christoph Waltz), who was one of the most successful painters of the 1950s and early 1960s. The artist earned staggering notoriety by revolutionizing the commercialization and accessibility of popular art with his enigmatic paintings of waifs with big eyes. The truth would eventually b...
Directed By: Tim Burton
Written By: Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski
- 2014
- PG-13
- The Weinstein Company
- 1 h 46 m
- 2014
- PG-13
- The Weinstein Company
- 1 h 46 m
Big Eyes
62
7.2
Where to Watch
Summary Big Eyes is based on the true story of Walter Keane (Christoph Waltz), who was one of the most successful painters of the 1950s and early 1960s. The artist earned staggering notoriety by revolutionizing the commercialization and accessibility of popular art with his enigmatic paintings of waifs with big eyes. The truth would eventually b...
Directed By: Tim Burton
Written By: Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 40 Critic Reviews
62
55% Positive
22 Reviews
22 Reviews
38% Mixed
15 Reviews
15 Reviews
8% Negative
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 40 Critic Reviews
62
55% Positive
22 Reviews
22 Reviews
38% Mixed
15 Reviews
15 Reviews
8% Negative
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
Shot for shot, Big Eyes is one of the most beautiful-looking movies of 2014, but to say that isn’t enough, because it’s not just pretty, not just pleasing to the eye. It’s visually astute. It is made by people aware of what these screen images mean, what they refer to, and the psychological effect that they will have on an audience.
It's not a bad movie, but Big Eyes might have been better off if it had sold its audience the same bill of goods Walter Keane sold America.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 218 User Ratings
7.2
68% Positive
148 Ratings
148 Ratings
27% Mixed
58 Ratings
58 Ratings
6% Negative
12 Ratings
12 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 218 User Ratings
7.2
68% Positive
148 Ratings
148 Ratings
27% Mixed
58 Ratings
58 Ratings
6% Negative
12 Ratings
12 Ratings
I always love watching movies based on true story, and this one's my fave too. What a character Keane is (feel bad that one of the bands I love got the same name with this slick swindler). But I believe everything happens for a reason. So, if Margaret were never met Walter Keane, those Big Eyes would never reach its popularity in a split moment, right?
Oh, despite its true events, it's really absurd to me when Keane decided to defend himself during the trial in Hawaii. Is this really really really happening then??? Gosh, what a stubborn person he is. Get lost!
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Big Eyes is a fabulous match of artist — Burton — and material. While it's one of the director's more low-key works, his trademark sly wit infuses the mesmerizing stranger-than-fiction biopic.
A recent showing of Burton's artwork at New York's Museum of Modern Art attracted long lines and critical brickbats. Maybe that's why Big Eyes, for all its tonal shifts and erratic pacing, seems like Burton's most personal and heartfelt film in years, a tribute to the yearning that drives even the most marginalized artist to self expression no matter what the hell anyone thinks.
Big Eyes contains comedy and tragedy, too, but they pair much less agreeably here, in part because each of the film’s two protagonists belongs much more to one world than the other.
A well-intentioned and resolutely minor period drama, "Big Eyes" isn't exactly a catastrophe, but its bland depiction of a fascinating story perhaps better served by the documentary treatment shows no evidence of the visionary creator behind the camera.
Campy and cartoonish, Burton’s Big Eyes is not the return to form many were hoping for. It is another phony and hollow piece of sugary kitschploitation masquerading under the guise of an “important true story” that places a nearly grotesque premium on style over any traces over substance.
Amazing story is one of the most beautiful directed films I have ever seen. Great performances from Amy Adams and Christopher Waltz. The paintings were just gorgeous and the film overall was just entertaining and fun to watch with the whole family. It also has a beautiful message for us at the end.
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When you're watching this movie, about an hour before the movie ends you start questioning why doesn't she sue this guy? she can actually ask the guy to draw one girl with big eyes and then everyone would know that he's a liar, BUT you have to wait all day to same thing happen at the end. So predictable but at the same time not waste of a time because of good acting.
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Big Eyes has set a negative note for everyone involved except Amy Adams, who's the only one who seems to think this is a valuable film. Tim Burton has long lost the charm of his earliest pictures, turning what could have been a great drama in a jolly caricature, complete with cartoonesque narration, silly music and over-the top acting (Christoph Waltz). Speaking of Waltz, his performance is not completely bad, but it's miles away from the ones that got him two Oscars - while still retaining the comical aspect.
Seriously, this movie could have been a much deeper insight on 50s culture, art culture, gender roles, everything; and instead it was forced into a senseless, cold comedy that loses power after minutes. Amy Adams is the one who keeps it together.
Generally unimpressive. I blame Burton and Danny Elfman (a combination that rocked some twenty years ago); one for losing his wit and his talent, the other for... well, what the hell was that score? Straight out of a bag of old tricks. No. I had hoped for more.
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Just as a good actor can raise a picture to be better a good actor without being reigned back can make a so-so picture worse and that is what happens in “Big Eyes”, the story of Margaret Keane (Amy Adams) who painted the best selling painters of waifs with huge eyes while her husband, Walter Keane (Christoph Waltz), claimed to be the painter. Waltz has shown that he is an excellent actor and while Walter was charismatic, a ‘salesman’, a manipulator but most of all a liar who invented himself, obviously, the director, Tim Burton, gives him too much freedom, especially in the trial scene. Though he is suppose to be obnoxious, possibly to make Margaret more understandable, he crosses the line.
Aside from the question of who did the art, and the bigger question of what is art, the reasons Margaret left her first husband, being strong enough to leave and take their daughter, why she stayed with Walter, letting him take away her accomplish- ment as an artist, as well as all her self-esteem, until two Jehovah Witnesses knock on her door, is not gone into deep enough by the screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski.
A segment takes place in the building and opening of the World’s Fair in 1964 where I worked in the Gas Pavilion as a waiter and I don’t recall any of what was suppose to have happened there but then except being aware of the ‘Big Eyes’ paintings I wasn’t aware of Margaret Keane’s story.
Amy Adams, playing a quiet, single mother of the 50s who doesn’t find acceptance due to the social mores of the time, does a good job and comes into her own with her eyes and facial experiences during the trial scene. Delaney Raye as her young daughter Jane, and Madeleine Arthur as Jane in her teenage years, don’t add anything to the film. Jon Polito, as the owner of the Hungry I, and Terence Stamp as the New York Times art critic John Canaday are standouts.
The story of Margaret Keane, her art, the times she lived through and why she was the way she was, and who she became, deserve a much stronger film then “Big Eye
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Production Company
The Weinstein Company,
Silverwood Films,
Tim Burton Productions,
Electric City Entertainment
Release Date Dec 25, 2014
Duration 1 h 46 m
Rating PG-13
Tagline She created it. He sold it. And they bought it.
Awards
Golden Globes, USA
• 1 Win & 3 Nominations
Women Film Critics Circle Awards
• 3 Nominations
BAFTA Awards
• 2 Nominations
