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Big Eyes | 2014 | PG-13 | - 2.4.5

Based on true events: Margaret Keane (Amy Adams), an artist in the 1950s and '60s suffered as her scheming husband (Christoph Waltz) took credit for her popular paintings and built a fortune. She accepted the fact that women were not taken seriously in art, until a courtroom showdown gave her a voice. Also with Danny Huston, Jon Polito, Krysten Ritter, Jason Schwartzman, Terence Stamp and Madeleine Arthur. Directed by Tim Burton. Several lines of dialogue are spoken in Italian without translation. [1:28]

SEX/NUDITY 2 - Several women in restaurants, clubs, and gallery openings wear dresses that expose a little cleavage. A woman at a party reveals significant cleavage when wearing a low-cut neckline, as she walks past the camera. A female cashier at a gallery wears a deeply cut blouse that reveals significant cleavage. Several snapshots show women wearing short shorts. A teen girl wears a halter-top baring her midriff. A woman wears a halter-top and shorts baring some cleavage and midriff.
 A man and a woman hug and kiss briefly in several scenes. A woman's young daughter sees her mother and a man kissing and walks away after asking, "What are you doing, but not waiting for an answer. A man and a woman hold hands in a restaurant and the woman has difficulty pulling her hand away.
 A woman speaking to a man asks if he does not want to flirt with other women in the sidewalk. He replies, "No, I like you."

VIOLENCE/GORE 4 - The relationship and marriage between a man and a woman begins quickly, displays increasing tensions and then becomes violent.
 A husband and his wife argue several times about painting portraits, his artistic background, her use of numerology and his taking credit for her artwork; he shouts and pounds on a table a few times and in one scene he flicks lighted matches at his wife and her teen daughter as they sit on the floor in a corner; they lock themselves into another room, but he puts lighted matches through the keyhole, igniting the shag carpet and when the woman cannot put out all the flaming spots on the carpet, she and her daughter exit by a sliding glass door and drive away.
 A man shouts inappropriately at a party, curses an art column in a newspaper and attacks a critic with a dinner fork, but the second man blocks the attack and the attacker leaves the party, embarrassed. A man displays his paintings in the back hallway of a club beside the washrooms and says that he is insulted by the location; he has a short fistfight with the club owner (no bloodshed occurs) and later, the two men stage a fake argument for publicity. A husband tells his wife that if she tells anyone that she paints the paintings he sells as his own, he will have her "whacked"; he forces her to sit in the attic of their home and paint pictures so that her daughter will not see her painting and allows her no friends, roughly pushing her last female friend out of the house during a shouting match and cursing.
 A woman and her ex-husband appear in court over libel charges and the judge states that he will not allow them to continue shouting as they hurl accusations at each other; he reprimands the defendant (husband) for histrionic behavior in the courtroom several times, becoming sterner each time, and finally orders both parties to paint a portrait and the husband stalls and pretends to have an injured shoulder, wincing and groaning.
 On a television broadcast, a man says that he paints large-eyed children in remembrance of the orphans he saw in Germany during WWII and he later adds that he saw them holding onto barbed wire and starving (people in the audience weep). A man tells newspaper reporters that after a visit from Jehovah's Witnesses, his wife became mentally unhinged.
 A woman packs quickly and puts her young daughter into a car; they drive away as we hear a voiceover state that her husband is suffocating. A woman tells a male friend that she had surgery as a child that left her temporarily deaf. A woman experiences mild hallucinations one day, seeing everyone she meets as having gigantic eyes and seeing large eyes when she looks into a mirror.

LANGUAGE 5 - At least 1 F-word and 1 possible F-word that is muffled, 1 obscene hand gesture, 4 scatological terms, 1 anatomical term, name-calling (liar, stupid, crazy, nuts, unhinged, goofy, clutter, lady-art, atrocities, monkey paintings, gummy bears, grotesque, nonsense, shaggy dog tale, ogre, bunch of suits, moldy chestnut), stereotypical references to men, women, single mothers, artists, abusers and their victims, con men, the rich, art critics, reporters, club owners, art collectors, exclamations (shut-up), 10 religious exclamations (e.g. My God, Christ, Good God, So Help You God, For God's Sake, a Hawaiian statue is called The God Of Creation).

SUBSTANCE USE - A woman asks her friend if espresso is like reefer (marijuana) and the friend says no, and a man fakes an injured right shoulder and says that he must take medication (unspecified) but he has no medication (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details). A man says that he lived on bread and wine in Paris, a man drinks a short glass of whiskey in several scenes, a man pours a drink from a group of whiskey bottles on a table at home in a couple of scenes, two men in a home drink short glasses of whiskey while a woman and her teen daughter receive no refreshments, two women drink clear liquor from tall glasses from a wet bar at a home, a woman pours clear liquor from a bottle among a dozen bottles on a table in her home into a tall glass and sips from the drink in a few scenes, a dozen club scenes feature men and women drinking tall and short mixed drinks and short glasses of whiskey and we see some Martinis on abandoned table, we see men and women drinking colorful highballs in a club, men and women drink from short and tall glasses of alcohol and champagne glasses at gallery showings and an artist's reception in a few scenes, two couples drink large glasses of wine at restaurant dinner tables in three scenes, and a man drinking whiskey at home slurs his words and stumbles while mumbling unintelligible threats and tosses lighted matches at his wife and her teen daughter (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details). Several men smoke cigarettes in scenes in a home as well as on the street and at a typewriter or in a car and while painting pictures, a woman smokes cigarettes in several scenes as she is painting, smoke rises from an ashtray in a home but no one smokes the cigarette in it, and several men and women smoke cigarettes in a club and in a restaurant and we can see streams of smoke rising.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Art as a livelihood, art criticism, copyright and trademark, domestic abuse, alcoholism, chronic lying, theft, mental health issues, fear, intimidation, taking a stand, divorce and related court battles, freedom, success.

MESSAGE - Do not fall victim to abuse and exploitation.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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