Big Fish

David Clarkson, March 31, 2016, Big Fish

Big Fish was probably my favorite movie that we have watched to this point, and it even left me feeling a little emotion at the end. It was a film unpacking the story of an extremely interesting man, somebody we would not completely understand until the end of the movie. His son, Ed Bloom doesn't feel like he knows who his father is, and sees the stories that his father has told him as some type of fantasy that his father is completely making up. As the film progresses, we start to learn about the type of man that his father was, and Ed is surprised when he finally understands his father's character. Above all, Ed's father was a man who loved his wife and son more than anything else in the entire world. He worked incredibly hard to  take care of them, and even though he was not always home with them, he loved them more than Ed ever imagined. Secondly, he was an honest and hardworking man who took care of the people that were apart of his life, outside his direct family. In these relationships he was always able to stay true and faithful to his wife, despite various temptations. Lastly, he was a man who was able to transform even the most rudimentary moments of his life into stories that could entertain any amount of people. The film comes full circle when Ed realizes that his father truly was the man who he had always said he was, and understand that the stories he told him were out of love. In the final chapter of his fathers life, Ed tells him one of these incredible stories about how his last moments on earth were spent with all his friends and family. Through this story we understand that Ed has come full circle with who his father was. It was a story that enabled his father to rest in peace.