Big Fish

Tim Burton's 2003 film follows a son estranged from his dying father. The father has always told his life in exaggerated stories. The son wants the truth. The film stages the stories as they are told; the narrative does not argue which is true and offers the telling itself as a form of love. It is adapted from a novel. Ewan McGregor and Albert Finney play the father at two ages. The visual design is fable-like and the close emotional. Who it's for: those who like fable-like narrative and stories about fathers and sons. Who it's not for: viewers expecting a realist family drama; the film keeps crossing into the imagined.