Big Eyes—Movie Review

by Peter J. O'Connell

Big Eyes. Released: Dec. 25, 2014. Running time: 106 mins. Rated: PG-13 for thematic elements and brief strong language.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the “eyes” had it. Wherever you went, you were likely to encounter a painting, print or poster of sad-looking waifs in dark settings gazing out at you with enormous eyes. These works were signed “KEANE.” Now a delightful movie, Big Eyes, tells the story behind these works of art (?) emblematic of an era—and who was “KEANE.” The film has just the right director, Tim Burton, who helmed such brilliantly eccentric works as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood and The Nightmare Before Christmas.

The story begins when Margaret Ulrich (Amy Adams), a recently divorced suburban housewife, moves into San Francisco. Margaret works during the week painting designs on furniture, but on weekends she sells her own paintings (signed ULRICH) at sidewalk art fairs. These paintings are of the big-eyed urchins. Margaret is drawn to such images because as a child she was deaf for a time and had to experience the world primarily by means of her eyes. Her daughter (played first Delaney Raye, then by Madeleine Arthur) also has big eyes.

On the sidewalk one weekend, Margaret encounters Walter Keane (Christoph Waltz), who sells banal street scenes of Paris. Walter is a smarmy, hyperkinetic real estate agent but fancies himself to be a fine artist. He romances Margaret, and they marry. Walter is not a master of the art of painting, but he is a master of what we might call the “American hustle.”   

                                                                                                                                                              Selling his and Margaret's works in a “gallery” (actually a hallway to the restrooms) of a nightclub, he notices that although his paintings are ignored, Margaret's attract some interest. He decides to promote the big-eyed works and claim them as his creations. Margaret will paint them; Walter will sign them. His promotional campaigns work, and the big-eyed paintings become enormously popular, though excoriated by art critics, such as John Canady of The New York Times, played with glacial hauteur by Terence Stamp.

Eventually, Margaret becomes restive under the regimen that Walter has imposed on her and with his deceptions, which are deeper than just claiming her work as his own. And Walter begins to show characteristics darker than just smarminess and twitchiness. Events move toward a climax at a trial more striking even than anything in a Perry Mason episode.

Christoph Waltz, who won Oscars twice in recent years for his work in Quentin Tarantino films, is even better here—obnoxious but compelling. Amy Adams once more gives a fine, convincing performance and once more displays her amazing (Amy-zing?) ability to look different from film to film—whether the young nun in Proof, the tough Boston broad in The Fighter, the coldly manipulative cult official in The Master, the con artist in American Hustle or Margaret Ulrich Keane.

Ultimately, Big Eyes, in effect, asks us to consider the question: “What is art?” The answer, perhaps, is—wait for it--”In the eyes of the beholder.” In any case, Big Eyes is a work of cinematic art, amusing but thought-provoking, with clear and colorful cinematography and spot-on details of period and place. As a final “brushstroke,” we learn that Margaret Ulrich Keane is still alive, paints every day, owns a gallery—and that Tim Burton is a collector of her work.