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'Big Eyes' Is Excellent, With One Big Exception

Before saying anything about Big Eyes, the new Amy Adams movie, let me say something about her co-star, Christoph Waltz.

I can barely tolerate him.

I'll give him his Academy Awards for Django Unchained, in a part obviously tailored for him, but his other Oscar, for Inglourious Basterds, will ever be a mystery to me because he seemed like a pure slice of Teutonic ham, completely out of touch with everything else in the film.

The same seems to be the situation in Big Eyes, where his continual overacting contrasts much too sharply with the nuanced naturalism of Amy Adams. It looks as if Waltz wants to bring back the classic style I miss so much now that Charles Laughton and Robert Newton and John Barrymore and Peter Ustinov are gone, but they all had a certain charm and a touch of humor that made their hamming fun, while Waltz has a grin that would do well on a villain in a Mosley Street melodrama.

But if you can put up with him, Big Eyes has a lot to offer. Amy Adams is letter-perfect, as always, and while the story has some real stretchers, I seem to remember reading about the real-life events some years ago and only the courtroom scene left me in serious doubt. There is no claim that Adams' paintings of children with big eyes are great art, except maybe by Waltz who claims them as his own.

There are no subplots. Everything is about Adams' art and Waltz's fraud, but there are enough details to keep things from getting monotonous. The tone is gently humorous, with a few effective variations a mercifully little theory of art.

All in all, Big Eyes is first-rate relaxation and excellent minor cinema, IF you can... but enough about Christoph Waltz. Most people seem to like him.