“Big Eyes” is the story of Margaret and Walter Keane. Walter Keane became famous back in the 60s for his portraits of big-eyes waifs. But in secret, it was his wife who painted all the waifs, a secret they kept from the public.
I was afraid it would get all Burtoned up in whimsy and so forth. (I haven’t liked a lot of his stuff since … Beetlejuice, which is one of my favorite films.) “Big Eyes” would be my second favorite Burton film. The story of the Keane’s deception and how Walter finally got unmasked is an interesting one and Burton wisely lets the stories and the characters take the lead. I do wish that Margaret Keane’s character had been explored a little more. Mostly we just get shots of Amy Adams (who plays Margaret Keane) looking unhappy whenever Chris Walz (who plays Walter Keane) does another outrageous thing.
We do get a picture of Walter Keane as a conman (possibly a sociopath as well, certainly quite a narcissist) that’s compelling and interesting. The art direction and filmography are topnotch, the 60s look is very nicely done. It’s not a GREAT film, but it’ll leave you thinking.
Give it a chance; it’s only been out for a few days. In any case, this is one of the smaller films Burton does for himself (e.g., Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, and Big Fish) rather than the big high-concept movies he does for the Hollywood establishment. These latter Burton movies always do less box office.
I’ve liked a lot of his films, but this one ranks up there with Ed Wood (my other favorite). I thought Amy Adams was great – Margaret, as written here, finds herself in this position because she is afraid to stand up for herself, so that’s the role. Christoph Waltz is great as always.
The only obvious Burton touches are the bright colors and the cast sprinkled with big-eyed actors (I couldn’t tell if they digitally enlarged Raymond Burr’s eyes in the Perry Mason clip…
My wife wanted to see it. I wasn’t excited about it, as I loathe the Keane big eyes paintings, and it was distressing to see Amy Adams smoking.
I enjoyed the film in spite of those things. Honestly, Adams wasn’t able to do a whole lot with her character. She just wasn’t that interesting a person.
I don’t know that Margaret Keane was all THAT uninteresting. What made her leave her first marriage at a time well before it was something that was done? A lot of other women enjoyed painting and maybe dreamed of doing it for a living, and maybe fantasized about leaving their husbands and living the wild, Bohemian life, but Margaret Kean actually DID it, which sets her well apart from most women. But we get none of that from the movie, only mousy Margaret is shown.
Furthermore, how did she survive when she was away from her husband and before she hooked up with Walter? Did she get alimony? Did she do some hooking? What was the basis for her first husband’s claim that she was an unfit mother?
Was she the sort of delusional romantic that would be a never-ending feast for a con-man like Walter? Is that what he really saw in her at the park? Or did he have a con-man’s sense that her paintings would have widespread appeal?
Really, a lot of interesting and unanswered questions in that movie.
I didn’t think that Walter was well written. He was a little ‘too unstable’ to have pulled off one of the greatest con jobs in the history of Art. He is shown several to be a very bad liar when put on the spot. A good con man is very comfortable spinning lies.
Also the actors cast to play the kids in this movie were all way too old to be playing the roles they did and that was quite distracting. There is a scene (that’s in the trailer) where her daughter says “I remember when mommy painted that” and they reply “No you’re confused, I (step-dad) painted that”. The kid is waaaay to old to have the parent mind trick work on her. Then Walter’s daughter from a previous marriage briefly appears and this girl is clearly into puberty and he asks her about how she lost a tooth? And did the tooth fairy come? What? You baby teeth fall out way before puberty. This is that actors only scene? Just flat out bad casting.
Did Walter Keene descend into a total fantasy world? Not really shown in this film but they do note how he insisted to his death that he painted those kids. Did he truly believe that?
And why have this reporter ‘narrate’ the film, when he seems only tangentially involved in the events?
I can’t answer the other questions, but I can answer this one: someone commented in a review of the movie that producer Harvey Weinstein (IIRC) just LURVES to have a narrator in a film. Not sure how accurate that is, but it DOES kinda feel like meddling by a suit, doesn’t it?
Some good points. For what it’s worth, the real-world Margaret had already met Walter Keane before she divorced her first husband, apparently under circumstances similar to those depicted in the movie (she was doing charcoal portraits at a fair). Walter had given up his real estate business already to devote his time to painting (he really did paint).
It’s good, but I’m going to say something really outrageous (at least according to my wife).
They could have made the arrangement work. He could have been less demanding and she more so, but really? Think of Nikki Sixx being the mastermind (as it were) behind Motley Crue but Vince Neil the better looking, more charismatic front man.
It seems to me where she could have negotiated a 2 day work week and a 60-40 split of the money. She was going to keep toiling away in obscurity without his unique skills. It would have taken a lot of give on both sides, but I walked away thinking that there could have been a much different outcome.
So if in real life Margaret left her first husband with Keane already lined up as husband number two (maybe she had been cheating on her first husband already) that puts a very different spin on things. And yet they kinda deliberately left that out of the movie, even if it could have been very dramatic. Actually makes my point about the movie even stronger.
Well more than that, the deception at the heart of the story was never NECESSARY. Walter just took credit for Margaret’s work because of his ego. The notion that the painter of big-eyed waifs HAD to be male for the paintings to sell is ridiculous. Margaret pointed out Georgia O’Keefe when Walter says female artists never succeed, but she could have pointed out Mary Cassat, Frida Kahlo and many others as well. The only reason “great” paintings have been a male thing is the entrenched sexism of the art world.
In fact, the tragedy of the story is that they WERE a great team … Walter’s marketing skills were what made Margaret’s art famous. She would surely have toiled in obscurity, as you say, if not for him.
We saw it on Christmas, mainly for Christoph Waltz. My husband asked “Does he ever appear in anything where he’s not a sociopathic nut job?” I’m sure he does, but we don’t see them.
Yes. For that matter, even as a kid I was flummoxed that a man had painted them, and I had plenty of time to study them in doctor and dentist offices. They were just so…girlie. And sad. Didn’t know why my docs wanted to bum out patients with paintings by a very bummed out artist.
I saw it recently and enjoyed it. There really is nothing extreme about the movie, though, IMHO. There were some dramatic parts, but nothing very extreme. There were some comedic parts that elicited chuckles from me, but no guffaws.
I did smile a lot during the movie, however. I also walked out of the theater with a smile on my face. Go without a lot of expectations, and I think you’ll enjoy it.
The narrator tells us as she leaves her first husband that doing so was exceedingly rare back then. It would have been even better to (somehow, if possible) show that and not just tell us but it is in the movie.
:rolleyes: The movie showed her applying for, and then working at, a job painting decorations on furniture in a factory; her art-fair stand was a hobby or second income. No mention of alimony. I think there wasn’t supposed to be a basis for the unfit-mother claim, beyond “back in the '50s, a single mother was de facto presumed unfit.” Hence Walter’s offer to marry Margaret – immediately following her receipt of the motion, at least in the movie – and her acceptance.
The narrator tells us as she leaves her first husband that doing so was exceedingly rare back then. It would have been even better to (somehow, if possible) show that and not just tell us 
but it is in the movie.