Big Eyes, Tim Burton

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During the 1960s, painter Margaret Keane’s artwork, largely depicting children with outlandishly large eyes, was sold under the name of her husband, Walter, who apparently exhibited all manner of unpleasant behavior in his attempts to coerce his wife into complying with his ruse. She eventually left him and successfully sued for the rights to her work. It’s a pretty straightforward story, seemingly tailor-made for a tidy Hollywood triumph-over-adversity biopic. The disappointment of Tim Burton’s Big Eyes, then, is that the film is just that and, sadly, nothing more. Amy Adams plays Margaret as little more than a blank slate. When Walter begins taking credit for her work, she at first registers some displeasure, but just a scene or two later, she is producing painting after painting in a locked room hidden from even her own daughter. As the years go by, Walter becomes increasingly demanding, egomaniacal and abusive, but Margaret just keeps on cranking out canvases. Why she chooses to go along with this scheme is never articulated beyond her general timidity, which she promptly gets over after finally leaving Walter and becoming a Jehovah’s Witness, just in time for the triumphant self-actualizing courtroom vindication that dominates the third act. […]