other: Big Fish (disambiguation)

Big Fish is a 2003 fantasy drama film, directed by Tim Burton and written by John August. It is loosely based on the novel Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions by Daniel Wallace, and stars Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Billy Crudup, Jessica Lange, Alison Lohman, Steve Buscemi, Helena Bonham Carter, Marion Cotillard, and Danny DeVito, among others.

Will Bloom (Crudup) returns to his family home in Alabama, having spent the past three years not talking to his father Edward (Finney). Dying, Edward recounts his life story in his own unique, exaggerated way, full of fantastic events (portrayed in these flashbacks by McGregor). Will tries to get to know his father and find the truth, discovering that his father did lead an extraordinary life and that his storytelling was his finest achievement.

The film was initially planned to be directed by Steven Spielberg before Burton took on the project, following the death of his own father. The film was mostly shot in Alabama, and had a much less gothic tone than Burton's other films such as Edward Scissorhands and Sleepy Hollow. Many critics hailed the film as Burton's masterpiece, and it received four Golden Globe nominations and one Oscar nomination for Danny Elfman's original score.

Plot

At his son's wedding party, Edward Bloom tells the same tale he's told many times over the years: on the day Will was born, he was out catching an enormous uncatchable fish, using his wedding ring as bait. Will is annoyed rather than pleased by this tale-telling; he explains to his wife, Josephine, that because his father never told the straight truth on anything but insisted on embellishing it with tales, he felt that he could not trust him. He is troubled to think that he might have a similarly difficult relationship with his future children.

Will becomes a journalist in Paris, and his relationship with his father becomes so strained that they do not talk for three years. But when his father's health starts to fail, Will and his pregnant wife Josephine return to Alabama. On the plane, Will recalls his father's tale of how he braved a swamp as a child, and met a witch who showed him his death in her glass eye. With this knowledge, Edward knows there are no odds he cannot face.

Edward still has a knack for tall tales. As he tells it, he spent three years confined to a bed as a child, with his body growing incredibly fast. He became a successful sports player but found the town of Ashton too small for his ambition. Finding a kindred spirit in the misunderstood giant Karl, they set off. Edward takes an abandoned path down a supposedly haunted forest. He discovers the tiny hidden town of Spectre, where the missing poet Norther Winslow has settled with people so friendly that no one ever leaves, and everyone comfortably walks around barefoot. Edward still feels he does not want to settle anywhere yet and leaves, but promises to the young girl Jenny that he will return.