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"The best I can do is tell it the way he told me. It doesn't make sense, and most of it never happened."

Big Fish is moving and powerful in the way that only a Tim Burton movie can be, celebrating oddity, fancy and whimsy, operating at the highest emotional pitch but with sentimentality turned way down low. The closing minutes had the entire theater in tears, including most of the critical contingent, and yet there is no speechmaking, or big group hugs, or grisly images of death. Burton hits on something more subtle and intricate than that. I believe that Big Fish accomplishes something extraordinary and exceedingly rare: it takes us beyond affection and into a sort of fatherly love.

I swear I went through the five stages of mourning after the credits rolled, and my desire to meet the protagonist bordered on need. Edward Bloom is played by Albert Finney in the present day scenes, and by Ewan McGregor in the flashbacks, as told by himself, his son William (Billy Crudup), and others. Edward is known as a storyteller, an embellisher -- a liar, according to William. After his dad stole the spotlight at his wedding by relating his oft-told story about his big fishing catch, the two didn't speak to each other for three years. Now his wife is pregnant, and he gets a call telling him that Edward's cancer has taken a turn for the worse, that he should come be at his dad's deathbed.

William sees the opportunity to finally learn who his father was. He wants to talk about Edward's life, about "things," go beyond the "amusing lies" that have evolved into "elaborate mythologies" over the years. He is interrupted by his wife, who likes the outlandish stories Edward tells, and his mother, whose love for her husband is so unconditional that it is never even proclaimed, except indirectly in the heartbreaking scene set in a bathtub. The opening voiceover lets us know that William will eventually embrace his father's penchant for fanciful invention, so the outcome of their relationship isn't much of a mystery, but Big Fish has other methods of creating suspense.

The flashbacks are elaborate works of fantasy, with giants, witches, siamese twins, magical towns, geek shows and the like. There is an undeniable joy in their creation, a delight in their possibilities; delving into the details of its whimsically supernatural world, the movie is walking on air. We get the feeling that these are tales told by someone who knows what makes a good story, and that the director has gone out of his way to make them even better. They stir the imagination while filling out the central character.

The present day scenes teem with the unspoken and the repressed, based around uncommonly genuine relationships; this is some of the most naturalistic work Burton has ever done, toning down the emotional elements of the fantasy sequences to create believable drama. Albert Finney avoids the adorable-old-geezer trap that this sort of role always lays, giving one of the most evocative performances of the year. McGregor is pretty darn great as the younger version too, though there are definite traces of the Scottish in the Southern accent he attempts.

The two sides of Big Fish are brought together in its two amazing final scenes; the first sent me flying to the ceiling in a fit of cinematic ecstasy, and the second brought me back down to earth in awful, sobbing tears. There is a revelation, then a dawning realization of what has been going on, and while some may see it coming, the emotional effect it had on me was nigh incomparable. I still recall the closing images with misty eyes.

Looking over this review, I can see that I did not do an adequate job of conveying what this movie means to me. It happens sometimes, with the really great stuff. The excessive amount of difficulty I had writing this review tells me that my reaction to Big Fish wasn't an entirely rational one, that something inside me just responded very strongly, and inexplicably. But some might say that's a natural reaction to a Tim Burton movie. I've seen Edward Scissorhands, so I knew that he could break my heart without drowning me in corn syrup. I didn't know he could do it in a story that's more light than darkness.