Filmmaker Tim Burton grew up with paintings of waif like children with saucer sized dark haunting eyes. These paintings were popular in the 1960s. In his film, BIG EYES, Burton reveals the drama behind the career of the painter, Margaret Keane. Her paintings were extremely popular despite being derided as ‘kitsch’ by art critics. The sales success was due to the efforts of Margaret’s husband, Walter, a tireless self-promoter.
Margaret (Amy Adams) meets Walter (Christopher Waltz) who has taken a stand next to hers at a San Francisco outdoor art market. She is trying to support herself and her daughter after leaving her first husband. The two get married quickly, but it is their business relationship which dominates their lives. Walter becomes the salesman-at-large, appearing with celebrities and on national television. Margaret stays at home, retreating to her studio to continually produce paintings of children with big eyes.
A life of underlying fraud ensues when Walter claims to be the artist. Walter concocts a story of his artistic inspiration being the European street children he claims to have seen as a soldier during the war. These lies reinforce and indeed necessitate Margaret’s isolation. In love, and bewitched by Walter, Margaret goes along with this personally morally damaging lie. It is not until after the critics attack the works and her daughter uncovers the truth that she fights back in court.
Waltz plays the narcissistic, increasingly boastful yet agitated Walter almost as a clown character. Adams plays the naive, moral wallflower with simpering conviction. She is so passive as to be in danger of being totally lacking in interest. This is not entirely surprising since the 1950s /early 1960s was a time just before women’s liberation. It was the urging and support of the daughter, played at different ages by Delaney Raye and Madeleine Arthur that augured well for the next generation of Keane women. For those who wait for the credits, there is a bigger moral victory revealed.
Occasionally dipping into melodrama, the film is a reasonably entertaining telling of the Keanes’ story. Only the preposterous courtroom scene provides any comic relief in this tale of emotional abuse.
