Big Eyes (IMDB) is a quirky biopic of Margaret Keane (Amy Adams), the painter responsible for those slightly creepy pictures of children with big eyes that you have almost certainly seen. Millions of them were sold as posters in the 1960s and 1970s.
The movie was directed by Tim Burton who is a big fan of Keane’s work, and unlike most biopics it sticks pretty close to the truth.
The movie gets most of its energy from Christoph Waltz who gives a brilliant and disturbing performance as Margaret’s husband Walter Keane. Arguably Walter was responsible for Margaret’s success. A talented promoter, he turned her paintings into a multimillion dollar poster empire–all the while claiming that he had painted them himself.
Eventually after their divorce Margaret was forced to take him to court to get the credit for her own work.
And there…well you know how Hollywood always hokes up trial scenes, depicting all sorts of things that would never be allowed in a real courtroom? I was pretty sure that I was watching just that sort of hokum. But I was wrong. It turns out that what the movie shows is fairly close to what really happened.
It’s a wild story and worth seeing.