Line #77 Film/BigFish


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/big_fish.jpg]]
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3	''Big Fish'' is a 2003 fantasy drama film written by Creator/JohnAugust and directed by Creator/TimBurton, based on the novel by Daniel Wallace.
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5	Journalist Will Bloom (Creator/BillyCrudup) returns home to Alabama with his wife Joséphine (Creator/MarionCotillard) to visit his dying father Edward (elder played by Creator/AlbertFinney, younger played by Creator/EwanMcGregor). He is displeased to find that his father continues to tell the same old {{tall tale}}s he's told all his life. Still, he's determined to [[TellMeAboutMyFather write his father's story]], and searches for some of the people his father crossed paths with. The further he searches, the more he finds that those stories might not be as far-fetched as they once seemed.
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7	The film also stars Creator/JessicaLange as the elder Sandra Bloom, Creator/HelenaBonhamCarter as Jenny Beamen, Creator/AlisonLohman as the younger Sandra Bloom, Creator/RobertGuillaume as Dr. Bennett, Creator/SteveBuscemi as Norther Winslow and Creator/DannyDeVito as Amos Calloway.
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9	In 2013, a [[TheMusical musical adaptation]] [[Theatre/BigFish of the same name]] (with a book by August and music & lyrics by Andrew Lippa) premiered in Chicago and later on Broadway; taking elements from both the book and the film.
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11	----
12	!!This film provides examples of:
13	* ActorAllusion: When Edward first arrives in Spectre, he passes a fellow who plucks out a few notes of "Dueling Banjos," the well-known theme from ''Film/{{Deliverance}}''. The banjoist is played by Billy Ridden, who performed the song on-screen in that film.
14	* AgonyOfTheFeet: Edward suffers this after leaving Spectre, considering his shoes were stolen by Jenny (the town's ground is just that soft). He has to walk back through the forest barefoot, and his feet are very beaten up by the end of it.
15	* AmbiguousSituation: It's never made clear [[spoiler:which death situation young Edward saw in the Witch's glass eye. It's possible that he viewed the elaborate, fantastical story that Will spins while Edward is on his deathbed, or that he simply saw Will himself telling that story]].
16	* AnachronicOrder: Sort of. Edward's childhood encounter with the Witch is one of the first stories that he tells Will. We later learn that [[spoiler:she was inspired by the adult Jenny, who began living alone after Spectre dried up and Edward rejected her]]. Because of the UnreliableNarrator, it's hard to tell where/if the latter events fit into Edward's tall tales, but it's still Lampshaded by Will.
17	-->'''Will''': Well, logically [[spoiler:you couldn't be the Witch]] because she was old when he was young.\
18	'''Jenny''': It's logical if you think like your father.
19	* BarefootCaptives: The town of Spectre steals the shoes of new visitors, forcing everyone to be barefoot so that they stay to the soft grasses of town and not leave through the painful woods around it.
20	* BigNo: Sandra's reaction to [[spoiler:the army sending her a notice thinking that Edward has died]].
21	* BilingualBonus: The ventriloquist scene, in which the Red Vietnamese/Chinese soldier is actually speaking in grammatically correct Filipino/Tagalog.
22	* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Edward dies, but dies knowing that William finally understands his love of storytelling after he tells a ribald story of how Edward's death would play out in one of his tall tales. In fact, it is shown that the modifications Edward gave to reality in his tall tales only made everyone else more special, not him.]]
23	* BlackComedy: There's something extremely amusing about [[spoiler:Don]]'s death ([[spoiler:having a heart attack while using the toilet with a Playboy magazine in hand]]).
24	* BookEnds: The story both begins and ends with a giant fish. [[spoiler:Edward catches one in the beginning and transforms into one when he dies]].
25	* BorrowedCatchphrase: In a sense. At the end, all of Edward's friends tell tales about ''him''. What they say can't be heard, but judging by their smiling and laughing, they're positive remembrances.
26	* BrutalHonesty: This is Will's main characterization--he always tries to speak the blunt, honest truth without tact as a kind of rebellion against his father's habits of telling tales and being vague. It's [[LampshadedTrope lampshaded]] when Will goes to meet Jenny and outright asks if the two were having an affair; Jenny laughs and remarks that she expected to dance around the question for another twenty minutes.
27	* BusinessTripAdultery: Will suspects his father had an affair while he was on the road and investigates. [[spoiler:Subverted when it turns out that while Jenny loved Edward and certainly ''wanted'' this to happen, Edward was too devoted to Sandra.]]
28	* ButHeSoundsHandsome: When Josephine remarks that she wants to take Edward's picture, he laughs and tells her that it isn't necessary: "Just look up 'handsome' in the dictionary."
29	* CallingTheOldManOut: Will pulls this on Edward at the beginning, accusing his father of being a self-centered asshole who hides behind tall tales because they're easier to deal with than the real world. The rest of the movie follows his attempts at reconciliation.
30	* TheCasanova: Edward Bloom is an entirely unintentional example. Every woman he meets wants him, and he's known for being flirtatious and friendly with them, though never crossing the line to outright romance. However, Edward's heart belongs to Sandra and Sandra alone, and he's never tempted to betray that vow.
31	* CastingGag: [[Creator/SteveBuscemi Norther Winslow's]] [[Film/ReservoirDogs criminal career]] either went on for a bit longer [[Film/{{Fargo}} or had some interesting history]].
32	* TheCatfish: The first of many tall tales spun by his father, notable for its occurrence during his son's birth.
33	* CheatingWithTheMilkman: Conversed; Edward tells an ancient joke about how he dreamed his father's death (see below); his supposed dad is fine, whereas his ''real'' dad dies on the porch during a milk delivery. He then follows it up with the charmingly blunt, [[DontExplainTheJoke "Because, see, my mother was bangin' the milkman."]]
34	* ChekhovsGun: As a child, Edward and some other children run into the Witch, and all of the children are shown what will happen when they die. [[spoiler:One of the kids happens to be Don, and after we see his death in the glass eye, it is then fulfilled when Don actually dies.]]
35	* ChekhovsGunman:
36	** The little girl that steals Edward's shoes and later befriends him when he first arrives in Spectre [[spoiler:turns out to be Jenny]].
37	** While a montage is shown of Edward's athletic highlights, it always shows another team member that always gets overshadowed by Edward. [[spoiler:He turns out to be Don Price, Sandra's at-the-time fiance]].
38	** Sandra is Edward's wife and the subject or driving force of a few stories. [[spoiler:While she cannot exactly corroborate ''everything'' that happened, she ''does'' confirm one or two of the stranger details in conversations with Will and Josephine, showing maybe Ed's stories aren't as far-fetched as Will believes.]]
39	* ColourCodedForYourConvenience: All of the scenes in the present have straightforward, natural-looking, lighting and grounded colors. All of Edward's stories, meanwhile, have vibrant, almost painterly colors to compliment their heightened reality.
40	* CombatPragmatist: Edward's [[DullSurprise calm]] answer to the North Korean duo's [[WhatTheFuAreYouDoing intimidating display]] [[FunnyBruceLeeNoises of]] skillful martial arts is a pair of NightVisionGoggles... and [[BattleDiscretionShot a total]] [[RelaxOVision blackout]].
41	* ComfortTheDying: [[spoiler:The climax of the film is Will telling his dying father, a lover and teller of tall tales of his life, a tall tale of his own in which Will helps his father escape the hospital. After a harrowing car chase--in which they're saved by Karl the Giant--they reach the river, where everyone who ever knew Edward has come to give him a proper goodbye. They celebrate as Will carries Edward into the river, where he gives one last kiss to Sandra before transforming into a massive fish--the same fish that appeared in his most-told story. Needless to say, his father is more than pleased to leave the mortal coil on that ending.]]
42	* CompleteTheQuoteTitle: The full idiom is "A very big fish in a very small pond."
43	* ConjoinedTwins: Ping and Jing, who provide the page image of the trope. [[spoiler:In reality, they're not conjoined, but they are twins.]]
44	* ConverseWithTheUnconscious: Subverted and Discussed. [[spoiler: After Edward ends up in the hospital due to a stroke, the next scene shows Will quietly reading at his father's side. To this, Dr. Bennett notes that it bothers him how people try to hold a conversation with their unconscious loved ones when there's no point, and remarks that Will and Edward are a refreshing change of pace. In turn, Will soberly points out that their estrangement is the secret to the lack of this trope.]]
45	* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Zigzagged. It's implied that Norther Winslow becomes one at Wall Street after robbing banks doesn't work out so well. [[spoiler:However, he is shown in a corporate office listening to Edward's plea to help Spectre in a later scene, so maybe he wasn't ''that'' corrupt.]]
46	* CradleToGraveCharacter: Edward's story is depicted from the birth to the end of his life.
47	* CrapsaccharineWorld: Played with. There's nothing obviously wrong with the town of Spectre, it appears to be just as nice as everyone says it is. But its perfection is... unsettling, in a way that's hard to define. The town is pleasant in an anodyne way - it's nice but offers nothing challenging or interesting. The townspeople's friendliness seems smarmy and excessive, implying that it's socially enforced rather than genuine. These things, together with the fact that the town residents try to trap visitors there permanently reinforces it being more of a dystopia than a utopia.
48	* CreatorCameo: Original author Daniel Wallace briefly appears as an economics professor at Auburn University.
49	* CutLexLuthorACheck: Invoked. Norther Winslow tries to make it as a professional thief, but it doesn't work out because Texas oil speculation has bankrupted the bank that he tries to rob. His response?
50	-->"I should go to Wall Street. ''That's'' where all the money is.
51	* DarkIsNotEvil: The Witch, despite a bad reputation, does nothing more evil than show Ed and his friends their eventual deaths, at their own request.
52	* DeathIsDramatic: Subverted. Edward dies quietly in the hospital after a stroke, but [[spoiler:as he's fading out, Will tells him a far more dramatic story of how he always imagined the Edward Bloom of the tall tales would meet his end. Edward's last word is "Exactly..." before he peacefully passes on]].
53	* DefectorFromParadise: Edward comes across the idyllic town of Spectre, where everyone is friendly, [[PrefersGoingBarefoot everyone is barefoot]] (so that they can't leave via the forest), and the culture is in an eternal stasis. Edward eventually decides he can't stay here when there's so much else he wants to accomplish in life. A poet there, Norther Winslow, also leaves after he's realizing he hasn't been able to write a single decent poem since he arrived, and becomes a bank robber then businessman. [[spoiler:Years later they return and use their fortune to save the town from bankruptcy.]]
54	* DissonantSerenity: PlayedForLaughs in the montage of Amos telling Edward facts about Sandra month by month, in which Edward always has the same happy and blissful reaction ("[X]...she likes [X]") in completely inappropriate circumstances. These scenarios include being inside a cannon, cleaning elephant poop, and standing right in the middle of a Globe of Death.
55	* DontExplainTheJoke: Edward tells Will's wife an old dad joke, then explains the punchline. You can understand why Will got tired of listening to him.
56	* DoubleMeaning: Each time the father starts to tell a story he mentions that "it's not a short story..." [[spoiler:They are all TALL stories.]]
57	* DreamingOfThingsToCome: Edward tells Josephine about his apparent psychic abilities as a child. He frequently had dreams in which a giant crow appeared before him and told him that certain people were about to pass away; the next day, news of the death would reach the family. When the crow delivers the message "Your daddy is going to die," Edward's father spends the next day in a fearful, drunken stupor, remarking to his wife that he had the worst day of his life. Edward's mother promptly provides some MoodWhiplash with the punchline: "You think ''you'' had it bad? [[NotActuallyHisChild The milkman dropped dead on the porch this morning!"]]
58	* EvenTheGuysWantHim: At the party in Spectre, Edward is dancing with the Mayor's wife, who says to him with a big grin "Jenny thinks you're quite a catch... We all do". The Mayor then takes her place in dancing with Edward, and he's also smiling. You can see the discomfort in Edward's face.
59	* ExactWords: Edward relies on this for some of his stories.
60	** The 'giant' was a man of abnormally large height, which Edward exaggerated for his tales.
61	** The 'Siamese' twins were, while not conjoined, of Asian descent.
62	** Edward offers to work for Amos for free if he'll tell him one fact about his mystery love each month. Amos takes the deal and technically sticks to it, but from what we see, all of the "facts" are simple trivia at best -- her favorite flowers are daffodils, she likes music, and is going to college. [[spoiler:It isn't until Edward "tames" Amos while he's in his wolf form that the circus owner gives him some genuine information, like the girl's name (Sandra Templeton) and where she lives.]] Not that any of the "facts" [[GrandRomanticGesture go to waste]], however.
63	* FaceDeathWithDignity: Edward is the only one to not be freaked out by seeing his death in the Witch's glass eye. In fact, he seems rather calm and accepting about it.
64	* FanDisservice: [[Creator/DannyDeVito Amos]]' nude body after a night as a werewolf, with the camera lingering on his backside.
65	* {{Fanservice}}: This is contrasted by the naked mermaid, who is almost exclusively seen from behind.
66	* FantasyForbiddingFather: Will Bloom clearly intends to become this, at one point outright stating that he isn't going to fill his child's head with "nonsense" like Edward did to him. [[spoiler: It's [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] in the end when, after his own son is born, he continues sharing Edward's stories and encourages his boy to tell them, too, as he's come to realize that his father's life ''was'' his tales.]]
67	* FlowersOfRomance: [[spoiler:As part of the GrandRomanticGesture towards Sandra, Edward plants an almost endless sea of yellow daffodils (which are her favourite flowers) outside her window and telling her they're destined to be married. She's already engaged, but calls it off when her fiancé beats the crap out of Edward right there. Later, they get married.]]
68	* ForegoneConclusion: [[InvokedTrope Invoked.]] Edward knows how he's going to die, which hilariously lets him out of another life-threatening situation when he points out this isn't what the vision showed.
69	* GaussianGirl: Both the young Sandra and Jenny share this when they're in a rather romantic scene.
70	* GentleGiant: Karl. A giant of a man who just wants to be left alone.
71	* GenreShift: In-universe example. While Will's [[FramingDevice framing story]] stays constant, Edward's stories range from horror (the Witch, the Werewolf), to fantasy (Spectre, the Circus), to RomanticComedy (the courtship of Sandra), to war (the Twins), to crime drama (Norther Winslow).
72	* GlamorousWartimeSinger: The Siamese twins Edward encounters when he accidentally parachutes into an enemy performance; they agree to help him if he finds a way to get them to America. [[spoiler:(In the end, it's revealed they weren't actually conjoined, although they were twins from Siam.)]]
73	* GloriousDeath: ZigZagged.
74	** Edward Bloom often tells the story of how a witch showed him his death as a child, though he's never told anyone the specifics. According to his stories, this has given him the confidence to live his life to the fullest since he already knows how he's going out. As he lays in a hospital dying, he asks his son Will to tell him the story of how he dies, as he foresaw it. While Will has hated his dad's tendency to tell tall tales in the past, [[ComfortTheDying he tells Edward a story]] of how he helps Edward dramatically break out of the hospital. They drive to a river in his father's old car where every character from the tall tales he told Will is there to cheer him on. Will takes him into the river, where he greets his wife one last time, before Will drops him into the river and he "returns to what you always were: a [[TitleDrop really big fish]]". Ed dies immediately after Will finishes the story. Through MagicalRealism, it's left unclear whether this is the death he envisioned or he's just trying to find an understanding with his son, but while the real Edward dies in his hospital bed, through the story he gets to die on his own terms.
75	** Edward's real funeral also ends up being a downplayed version of this imagined scenario, with [[RealAfterAll multiple characters Will always thought his father made up]] showing up to celebrate his life.
76	* GrandRomanticGesture: Edward stages several of these to win over Sandra, the biggest being [[spoiler:the field of daffodils -- 'cause they're her favourite flower]]. (Because Tim Burton wanted to avoid CGI in this film, [[spoiler:''those are all real daffodils'']].)
77	* GrowOldWithMe: Edward's favorite story is how he met and proposed to his wife of many years, Sandra.
78	* HighHopesZeroTalent: Norther Winslow, the alleged Poet Laureate of Ashton and Spectre. The best he could come up with after several years of work is "Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, Spectre is Great!"
79	* ImpossiblyMundaneExplanation: Dr. Bennett reveals the true story of Will's birth to him. In reality, [[spoiler:Will had a perfectly unremarkable, regular delivery. Edward had actually been away on a business trip at the time, but Dr. Bennett points out that it wouldn't have mattered anyways since during that time period, fathers weren't allowed to be in the delivery room]]. Dr. Bennett then [[ArmorPiercingQuestion asks Will whether he prefers the fantastic or mundane story]].
80	* InterchangeableAsianCultures: Edward's flashback to his war career has in parachuting in to a deliberately vague military camp in Asia. The logos and uniforms are made up, the time period isn't given, and Edward pre-parachuting is even reading a book called "How To Speak Asian". The Asian actors in this scene also speak different languages; the puppeteer speaks Tagalog, the soldier who escorts him offstage speaks Mandarin Chinese, the twins speak Cantonese, and the other soldiers speak Korean. This was done to keep the scene from setting itself in a specific war, and also possibly because Edward, as an American, might not be able to tell the difference between different Asian cultures.
81	* IronicEcho:
82	** First:
83	--->'''Jenny (age 8)''': How old are you?\
84	'''Edward''': 18.\
85	'''Jenny (age 8)''': I'm 8. That means that when I'm 18, you'll be 28. And when I'm 28, you'll be 38.\
86	'''Edward''': You're pretty good at arithmetic.\
87	'''Jenny (age 8)''': And when I'm 38, you'll only be 48. That's not much difference at all.\
88	'''Edward''': Sure seems like a lot now though, huh?
89	** Later:
90	--->'''Edward''': Your name's different. Did you get married?\
91	'''Jenny''': Yeah. I was 18, he was 28. Turns out it '''was''' a big difference.
92	* ItsAllAboutMe: Will accuses Edward of having this attitude, when Edward's speech at Will's wedding barely mentions Will and the marriage and instead gives Edward an opportunity to tell another of his tall tales about himself.
93	* {{Jerkass}}: Sandra's first fiancé, Don. He's a brutish, short-tempered jerk who, upon seeing Edward talking to Sandra, [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown beats the stuffing out of him]] -- even though Edward refuses to fight back since he promised Sandra that he wouldn't hurt Don. Thankfully, Sandra realizes what a jerk he is and promptly ends the engagement.
94	* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Amos, the circus owner. He's implied to engage in some corrupt practices with his employees--upon meeting Karl and hiring him for the show, he asks if the giant has ever heard of the term "involuntary servitude"--and takes advantage of Edward's determination to meet Sandra to get free labor for three years. But he's ultimately a nice guy--after Edward [[spoiler:saves him while he's in wolf form]], he applauds the younger man's determination and shares everything he knows about Sandra, and later joins the group of investors buying Spectre to save it from ruin.
95	* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler:After Don gives Edward a ''brutal'' NoHoldsBarredBeatdown, we then see him die in the same way that was previously shown in the witch's glass eye -- having a heart attack on the toilet.]]
96	* LighterAndSofter: Surprisingly, one of Creator/TimBurton's few films that [[PlayingAgainstType isn't dark or gothic]], which is outside of his wheelhouse for his reputation.
97	* LonelyFuneral: Subverted -- it seems like no one but Ed Bloom's son Will will attend his funeral, but all of his old circus friends and acquaintances come and share stories about Ed.
98	* LoveAtFirstSight: Edward upon first seeing Sandra.
99	* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane:
100	** DoubleSubverted. All of the stories that his father tells him start out plausible, but quickly become too fantastical to be anything but lies. But [[spoiler:when he finds the official letter about his father actually having been shot down in Korea and declared dead, and he starts meeting the real people behind the stories]], Will realizes that there might be more truth than fiction in all of them.
101	** It should be noted the further on it gets in Edward's life, the decidedly less fantastical - if no less improbable - the stories get, with pre-Korean War stuff being more magic in nature and post-Korean War stuff being more coincidental. [[spoiler:The kicker is how Ed's funeral shows even the more magical portions have ''the same'' level of truth-telling as the more coincidental portions.]]
102	* MistakenForCheating: Will finds mysterious payments his father made to Jenny and thinks it's evidence of an affair, but Jenny says that Edward stayed faithful all his life (not for Jenny's lack of trying though).
103	* MisunderstoodLonerWithAHeartOfGold: Turns out the Old Witch is actually [[spoiler:a very depressed and lonely Jenny. (The only thing crazy about her [[CrazyCatLady is the large amount of cats living with her]])]]. Edward was telling the truth, but he just exaggerated the story and the kids took his word literally. Karl as well.
104	* MoodWhiplash: While at a bank, Edward somehow runs into Norther Winslow from Spectre, who tells him about how he's been encouraged to travel ever since Edward became the first person to leave the town. Edward asks him what he's doing at the bank.
105	-->'''Norther''': [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments I'm robbing the place.]]
106	* TheMunchausen: Played with. Edward's stories all seem like wildly implausible BlatantLies. However, Will later discovers that most of his stories have at least a grain of truth and most of the people in his stories have real-life counterparts, even if the stories are wildly embellished.
107	* NeglectedGarden: Edward first meets the town of Spectre as an idyllic town covered in soft grass, to the point that everyone, including the Mayor and his young daughter Jenny, is constantly barefoot. When Edward comes back more than a decade later, [[spoiler:a road has been built across Spectre, the town has gone bankrupt from debt, all the grass has dried, and an adult Jenny, now divorced and depressed (and resentful because of Edward's departure), lives in a run-down house with similarly unkempt bushes. After Edward saves the town and fixes Jenny's house, everything looks green again. However, after he rejects Jenny's advances and leaves forever, Jenny's house gets covered by vines, turning into the witch's house from the beginning of Edward's stories.]]
108	* NeverHeardThatOneBefore: Will has heard Edward's stories so many times he can recite them word-for-word simultaneously with him.
109	* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: Don gives one to Edward when he finds him with Sandra. Edward ''allows'' him to beat him up since he had sworn to Sandra not to fight back. Thankfully, Sandra is disgusted by Don's acts and immediately calls off the marriage.
110	* NotHowImDyingDeclaration: Edward Bloom, as a boy, had a witch show him how he'd die, as he realized that, if he knew how he'd die, then there was nothing else in life to scare him because he knew he'd get through it. Thus, whenever confronted with a situation many would regard as hopeless, he'd simply shout "This isn't how I die!" and find a way out.
111	* OnlyAFleshWound: Edward is accidentally shot in the shoulder in one scene, but even immediately after it doesn't seem to affect him much.
112	* PoliticallyCorrectHistory: A minor example is that Will is delivered by a Black doctor. Tim Burton actually had to fight studio heads for this, who claimed it was historically inaccurate for a Black doctor to have delivered a white baby at that point in history, but Burton won them over by arguing that all of Edward's stories are idealized in a certain way.
113	* PrefersGoingBarefoot: The eternally barefoot population of Spectre. A rare plot important example, because [[spoiler:stealing new visitors' shoes is how the townspeople keep them from entering the forest to leave the town.]]
114	* ProphecyArmor: The hero Edward claims that he learned how he would die via a vision in a witch's eye, therefore, he can confront any situation knowing he won't die, such as talking to the surly giant Karl. One of his tall tales has him being attacked by carnivorous trees. But just before they kill him, Edward remembers out loud that this isn't how he dies, causing all the trees to back off.
115	* QuirkyTown: Spectre. Everyone is idyllically happy, nobody wears shoes.
116	* RealAfterAll: Will realizes that there is some truth to his father's tall tales when he discovers the letter that (incorrectly) declared him dead in the war and a deed to a house in Spectre. [[spoiler:The finale at Edward's funeral reveals that ''all'' of the characters from his stories were real, although he exaggerated them for the telling: Ping and Jing are identical twins but not conjoined, Karl does have gigantism but isn't twenty feet tall, and so on.]]
117	* RefusingParadise: [[spoiler:Edward Bloom's decision to leave Spectre. He essentially states that while he'd be happy to end up there eventually, he has to live his life first.]]
118	* RebuiltPedestal: Will spent years without speaking to Edward because he became frustrated with his father's endless stories about himself, which Will saw as nothing more than self-aggrandizement. [[spoiler:In the end, he comes to realize that Edward really was a remarkable man (even if he had a tendency towards exaggeration) and, more importantly, a loving father.]]
119	* TheReveal: Edward Bloom passes away, drawing quite a crowd to his funeral. [[spoiler:All the stories he told turn out to be true - but exaggerated. The twins are real, but not really conjoined; the giant is real, but only eight feet tall instead of twenty-odd feet tall; Amos Calloway is real, but probably isn't really a werewolf, and so on.]]
120	* SavageWolves: Edward is attacked by a wolf while searching for Amos Calloway one night. It jumps on him and gives him a good scare with how aggressive it is... but it's eventually [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] as Edward is able to "defeat" it by playing fetch with it, after which it calms down considerably. [[spoiler:It also ''is'' Amos Calloway, who asks with genuine concern whether or not he hurt anyone the next day when he's human again.]]
121	* ScareDare: Here it's an ''abandoned house''. [[spoiler:It's a witch. For real. She is also the unlucky LoveInterest, [[MerlinSickness living backward in time]].]]
122	* SelfFulfillingProphecy: Don Price. As a child, the Witch showed him that he would die at a very young age, and he became terrified of dying alone. As a result, he became incredibly possessive of Sandra, the first girl who agreed to marry him. Then, when Edward made advances on Sandra, Don beat him to a pulp. His violent actions shocked Sandra so much that she left him, and the physical exertion from the fight caused him to die of a heart attack at age 20. Just as the Witch predicted.
123	* SheatheYourSword: When young Edward is confronted by a wolf [[spoiler:or rather, Amos Calloway in werewolf form]], he brandishes a stick as if to hit the wolf with it. Just before it charges, he throws it... past the wolf, and they have a friendly game of fetch.
124	* ShoutOut:
125	** When Edward and Karl leave Ashton, the town's local movie theater is showing ''Film/FromHereToEternity''.
126	** When in Spectre for the first time, Edward walks past a man sitting on his porch playing [[Film/{{Deliverance}} "Dueling Banjos"]].
127	* ShroudedInMyth: Ed's particular problem, which has caused a few years of estrangement. No one can tell which stories he tells are true and which are just him spinning yarns.
128	* SingleTargetSexuality: Edward Bloom. His son Will thinks he [[spoiler:had an affair with Jenny]] until it turns out that [[spoiler:it was completely platonic. Not for lack of trying on her part.]]
129	* SkinnyDipping: Both times Ed encounters the mermaid/fish girl, she's swimming perfectly naked.
130	* SoapOperaDisease: We're never actually told what ailment Edward is dying from at the start of the movie, although the line "They're stopping chemo" suggests a form of cancer--but he ultimately dies after [[spoiler:winding up in the hospital from an (apparently unrelated) stroke]].
131	%%* {{Slipstream\|Genre}}
132	* SolitarySorceress: The Witch lives either on the outskirts of the town of Spectre or somewhere near the suburbs where Edward grew up, depending on [[UnreliableNarrator which of his stories you listen to]].
133	%%* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''Film/ForrestGump''.
134	* StableTimeLoop: Invoked and played with.
135	** In his first story, Edward meets a witch who tells him how he's going to die. [[spoiler:When Will goes to meet Jenny and learns the eventual fate of Spectre, the story ends with Jenny becoming the Witch after realizing Edward wouldn't return her feelings and living in isolation afterwards. This makes it where Will's finding out about his father's life is a stable time loop and ends where it started, but even the actual Jenny acknowledges that's partially due to the fantastical way Edward told his stories more than anything else.]]
136	** In the final story about Edward, [[spoiler:Will takes him to the local river where Edward transforms into a giant catfish, and it's implied that he's the very same catfish his younger self will catch when Will is born]].
137	%%* SweetHomeAlabama
138	* StalkerWithACrush: Edward relentlessly hunts down Sandra, deciding that she's going to be his wife, and sends messages to her until she loves him back.
139	* SuspectIsHatless: Amos delivers one piece of information about Sandra to Edward per month in return for his work at the circus, as promised. Until their last interaction, he provided completely worthless information like "she goes to college" and "she likes music."
140	* TallTale: Played with. Some of Ed's stories are, to some extent or other, true, though it's never entirely clear which or to what extent.
141	* ThatRemindsMeOfASong: A variant--"That reminds me of a story." Edward has a tale or joke for ''every'' scenario imaginable, and is always ready to tell them. In one instance, the syrup on his breakfast plate is enough to get him to start talking about a time when his car got stuck in a maple tree; when Will asks if he "knows about icebergs," he launches into a recollection about seeing one with a woolly mammoth trapped inside.
142	* ThisIsMyStory: "In telling the story of my father's life, it's impossible to separate fact from fiction, the man from the myth. The best I can do is to tell it the way he told me." (although slightly subverted into a sort of This Is His Story As He Told It To Me.)
143	* TownWithADarkSecret: Specte appears to be this at first, but in turns out to be just a QuirkyTown.
144	* TrappedInASinkingCar: Downplayed. Will actually gets to enjoy the underwater world.
145	* UnreliableNarrator: The premise of the movie is dependent on Edward having a knack for stretching the truth with his stories to the point where his estranged son thinks they're all fabrications, though played with [[spoiler:as it turns out that his father wasn't ''exactly'' lying, but wasn't ''exactly'' telling the truth either]].
146	* WerewolvesAreDogs: Edward Bloom learns the circus ringmaster turns into a werewolf. One night he accidentally lets him out of his trailer, and a clown prepares to kill the monster with a silver bullet before it can wreak harm, but Edward defuses the situation by playing fetch with the wolf.
147	* WhamLine: [[spoiler:"Your father has had a stroke."]] It's really after this line that [[DarkestHour things start going downhill...]]
148	* WhamShot: [[spoiler: At Edward's funeral, we see a giant hand open a car door...and Amos Calloway steps out, smiling sadly at Karl. This is the moment when the audience learns that Edward's stories ''were'' true, after a fashion--he exaggerated them, but the people and events were all real.]]
149	* WhenTreesAttack: Soon after leaving Spectre for the first time, Edward is ambushed by a group of trees whose intents are far from friendly. However, it's subverted when [[spoiler:Edward remembers how he would die in the Old Witch's magic eye and exclaims "This isn't how I die!", making the trees leave him alone immediately.]]
150	* WackyParentSeriousChild: Will is irritated by his father Edward's constant recounting the far-fetched stories of his exploits and adventures, though at the end he becomes much more sympathetic towards his father when he realizes that while the stories were greatly embellished, they were very much based on real events and people.
151	* WickedWitch: Averted: the Witch of the Swamp is certainly old and mysterious, but she's [[DarkIsNotEvil not evil]] and offers to let people see into her death-predicting glass eye if they ask politely.
152	* WolfMan: [[spoiler:Amos]] is revealed to be this if you believe Ed's stories.

Context Film / BigFish