Fresh off a divorce, highly peculiar for the era, a timid young mother throws herself into the art scene of 1950s San Francisco. There, she falls under the spell of Walter Keane, an unspectacular local painter who’s been pestering critics and making “real” artists roll their eyes for years. Together, the two make a sort of magic - while she quietly produces kitschy, haunting portraits, he finds a space to hang them, drums up publicity and schmoozes with the right people. It’s a wildly successful artist/manager partnership, especially when Keane hits on the idea of mass-producing the work to reach a new, lower-income audience, but success goes to his head. Just as they reach the big time, he begins taking credit for her work, and that lie soon eclipses their relationship.

Though it’s directed by Tim Burton, who cites Margaret Keane as an important personal influence, _Big Eyes_ is decidedly un-Burton in most every way. I would’ve expected the director to embrace the more ostentatious aspects of the atomic age, to add his own unique perspective to the creative process and the tackier side of the art scene. Instead, everything just feels run-of-the-mill and workmanlike. He tells the story adequately enough, but adds nothing that wasn’t already printed in the script. Everything’s so blasé, an interesting story told in a thoroughly uninteresting way.

Burton’s gone straight once or twice before - notably in _Ed Wood_, his most traditional film and first biographical work - but there’s a wide gulf between the emotional punch and subtle character moments of these two films. Even the obligatory accompanying Danny Elfman soundtrack lacks its quirky beats and unmistakable idiosyncrasies. It seems this once-vibrant creative well has run dry, its source content to keep wringing and hope for a few drips of eccentric nostalgia. Nothing so far.