Movie Review: "Big Eyes"

"Big Eyes": C-.  Big Eyes is the most ridiculous drama I have seen since the inception of The Quentin Chronicle.  It also contains the poorest rendition of a courtroom finale in recent memory.  For the benefit of those of you who decide to blow off my advice and see the flick anyway, I will try not to spoil it for you.  But, imagine the following scenario.

In late '50's northern California, a man and a woman, neither one of whom is famous, both claim to be artists.  The man has "shyster" written all over him.  The woman is shy and lacks confidence.  They get married, and she spends most of her time in a home studio producing paintings which become a national sensation.  All of the human subjects in her pictures feature huge eyes.  Most would call the artwork "kitchy," but that's not the case in this tale.  Her husband, on the other hand, can barely paint a stick man, but he is good at one thing in particular: as the saying goes, he can sell ice to the Eskimos.  He uses that skill to sell his wife's work to dozens of people, including dignitaries like Dino Olivetti.  The man is a marketing genius.  He soon realizes that he can peddle even more paintings by claiming himself to be the artist.  After all, the pictures are signed "Keane," which is the surname shared by both him and his wife.  She doesn't really like the idea of him taking credit for her work, but they're raking in so much dough that she can't bring herself to say no.

When she finally reaches the point where she's had enough of living a lie, she comes forward with the truthful claim that it is she, not her husband, who produced the famous paintings.  He vehemently denies her assertion, even suggesting that she is mentally unstable.  The dispute becomes national news.  They end up in court.

Now, here comes the $64,000 question:  If you were the woman, or her attorney, what would be the first, obvious and only thing you would need to demonstrate in front of a judge to prove you were telling the truth?  If you can't think of the answer, then by all means go to see Big Eyes.  The picture appears to be directed at those folks who think this is high drama with the outcome in doubt.

Amy Adams does her best in the role of Margaret, the true creator of the big-eyed portraits.  Christoph Waltz, generally one of my favorite actors, is not as effective here in the part of Walter, her husband, because we catch on from the first line he speaks that this guy has "used car salesman" in his blood.  Waltz is more effective in roles where there is a hint of that, instead of the sleaziness being an overt characteristic.  In Big Eyes, he's not a tich off center; he's downright loopy.

Margaret has a daughter, Jane (as a little girl played by Delaney Raye and as a teen by Madeleine Arthur), whom Walter and Margaret try to keep in the dark about their private secret, i.e., that Margaret is the artist and Walter is not.  As a parent of three kids and a former teacher of teenagers for eleven years, I have to question just how well the script writers, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, know what teens are like.  Part of Walter's grand plan is to prevent Jane from discovering the truth, even though Margaret's studio is in their glitzy house, right off the living room!  I don't mind a little Hollywood license occasionally, but I have never known an able-bodied teen who would fall for such a ruse.