At church this Sunday dads and father figures will be asked to stand for a Father’s Day blessing. I can’t tell you the exact words of the blessing, but I’m sure it will involve the critical role fathers play in our children’s lives and our duty to model and pass down the faith. Parents (not just dads, of course) are children’s “primary and principal educators” in the words of “Gravissimum educationis,” Vatican II’s declaration on Christian education.
That’s a lot of responsibility and, to be honest, I don’t think I always live up to it. I know what I want to pass on to my children, the values and knowledge that I hope will help them to navigate the world with love, resilience and hope. But I’m also aware that the most important lessons might not even be the ones I’m conscious of teaching. What will my children learn from my actions, from how I treat others and interact with the world?
With all of this on my mind, I decided to revisit one of my favorite films about fatherhood: Tim Burton’s “Big Fish” (2003). Based on the novel by Daniel Wallace and a screenplay by John August, “Big Fish” revels in Burton’s usual love for the grotesque and offbeat, but it is also his most unabashedly sentimental film. It’s a story about stories, particularly the stories we tell our children about ourselves. But it’s also about how we teach our children to see the world.
Edward Bloom (Albert Finney) is a storyteller: a big, gregarious Southerner with a colorful, fantastical anecdote for every situation. He has, in Edward’s telling, lived a remarkable life: His younger self (Ewan McGregor) befriended witches, giants, and werewolves; served as a paratrooper deep behind enemy lines; accidentally robbed a bank; and caught the world’s biggest, most elusive fish with his wedding ring. The centerpiece of these stories is his epic courtship of his wife, Sandra (Jessica Lange; Alison Lohman).
Those stories enchant everyone who hears them… except Edward’s son, Will (Billy Crudup). As a boy he was just as charmed as everyone else, but as he grew up he began to resent his father’s tall tales and frequent time away. In contrast, he grew up sensible and straitlaced, prizing facts over fancy. Expecting his own first child with his wife Josephine (Marion Cotillard), Will receives word that his father is dying from cancer and returns home. He hopes to reconcile with his father, but in Will’s mind that means finally getting to know him: untangling fact from fiction to discover the real man underneath.
That’s no small task, considering how easily Edward mixes fiction with fact. “Most men, they’ll tell you a story straight through,” he says. “It won’t be complicated, but it won’t be interesting either.” Will sees this in binary terms: There’s the truth, and anything else is a lie. But as Edward tries to show his son, there are truths that transcend basic facts—and sometimes the only way to convey them is to tell an incredible story.
Ultimately the truth that Edward wants to pass along to his son is to look at the world with wonder and awe. Edward’s life was an adventure not because amazing things happened to him, but because he chose to see it that way. He approached other people with openness and curiosity, making some unusual friends once he learned that “most things you consider evil or wicked are simply lonely, and lacking in the social niceties.” Edward’s version of things doesn’t just make life more exciting, it opens up possibilities for connection and exploration.
Like all parents, he doesn’t do it perfectly; there’s a reason that father and son have so much friction. But when I think about what I am passing on to my children, I hope it’s something very similar: a worldview of wonder, compassion and faith. And “Big Fish” reminds me that if that’s what I want them to learn, then it’s what I have to embody. The best way to teach anything, after all, is to live it.
“Big Fish” is available to rent and buy online, or borrow from your local library.
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