Big Fish Columbia TriStar Home entertainment     Reviewed by Tony Buchsbaum	Tim Burton has made a career of telling us fables. From his earliest movies, such as Pee-Wee's Big Adventure and Batman, to his most recent, such as Sleepy Hollow and Big Fish, Burton has taken his audiences on journeys that no other director would dare to, in ways that no other director seems to know how to do. Big Fish, just out on DVD and based on the novel by Daniel Wallace, was to have been directed by Steven Spielberg. It's interesting to wonder what kind of film this would have been, had that happened. No doubt it would have been warm, multi-layered and provocative, truly a signature Spielberg feel-good film -- but it wouldn't be Burton's. As it is, Big Fish is one big film. That is, a film that's loud on ideas but quiet in execution. The great Albert Finney plays Ed, dying man who hasn't seen his son Will, played by Billy Crudup, in three years. With time suddenly running out, and with his first child just weeks from being born, Will wants to connect with Ed one last time, if he can. They've had some trouble connecting because Ed has made a life of telling stories that seem to be exaggerations of the truth. He's turned his life into a series of fables (is it any wonder Burton took to this material?). The thing is, Will wants to know the real story, the man behind the bravado, behind the oft-told anecdote. The film is peppered with some of these magical stories. Ed as a boy, visiting the neighborhood witch. Ed rescuing his small town from a giant who lives in a nearby cave. Ed's time in another town, where no one wears shoes. Ed's moment of love-at-first-sight, when he first sees his wife-to-be in a moment that literally has time standing still. Each story is made of the stuff that pumps blood through Ed's veins. He would have you believe that everything in life was an adventure, an experience to behold and to share. In a way, Ed is a complex blend of the husband and wife characters in Six Degrees of Separation. In that 1993 film, based on a smash Broadway play, Flan (Donald Sutherland) seems to have reduced an event in their lives to a story, a party anecdote. His wife Ouisa (Stockard Channing) cannot use their life-altering experience to amuse their party friends. To her, experience matters. And, in the end, the experience completely changes the course of her life. In Big Fish, Ed understands Flan's and Ouisa's points of view. He knows the value of experience as well as the value of a good story. And when he tells them, it's not about the anecdote but about the sharing of it. He's fascinated by his life, and he knows others will be too. Albert Finney's superb job is mirrored by Ewan McGregor, who plays the younger Ed. He drops his British accent in favor of a Southern one, and you hardly notice that he and Finney are different people. Their performances mesh seamlessly, as do Jessica Lange's and Alison Lohman's, who share the role of Sandra, Ed's wife. There is, frankly, nothing Jessica Lange can't do; she is luminous here, carrying both the joy and the unspoken sorrow of a life lived at Ed's side. On DVD, the film is beautiful. Tim Burton provides a fascinating audio commentary, and there are several behind-the-scenes featurettes about Ed, a circus ringmaster (played by Danny DeVito), Burton's approach to storytelling, fairytales and myths, the film's creatures, the novel's author and the film's screenwriter. There's even a Tim Burton quiz. Big Fish is one those films that resonates after the credits roll. Once it hooks you, it doesn't let you off, even after its wonderfully satisfying ending and long after you've shut off the lights and gone to bed. | May 2004   Tony Buchsbaum is the author of Total Eclipse. At night he works on another novel and a screenplay. Days, he writes advertising copy in Lawrenceville, NJ, where he lives with his wife and sons.	Big Fish, just out on DVD and based on the novel by Daniel Wallace, was to have been directed by Steven Spielberg. It's interesting to wonder what kind of film this would have been, had that happened. No doubt it would have been warm, multi-layered and provocative, truly a signature Spielberg feel-good film -- but it wouldn't be Burton's.