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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

Big Eyes

Christoph Waltz and Amy Adams in Big Eyes.

Tim Burton has directed his share of acclaimed films, among them Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Beetlejuice. But he’s also produced works that have split the critics: see Sleepy Hollow, Batman, and the 2014 film Big Eyes. Starring Christoph Waltz and Amy Adams, the latter film achieved middling reviews and box office sales. Yet this dramatization of the relationship between the artist Margaret Keane and her plagiarist husband, Walter, though more focused on narrative than given to spectacle, hits all the requisite marks of a strong Burton creation. Its story is quirky and abstract, its characters are surprisingly warm, and its visuals maintain a noticeable degree of Burton’s typical absurdity. The film now arrives on Netflix, almost nine years after its debut. —Jack Sullivan

Photo courtesy of Netflix