Edward Bloom (played in his younger years by Ewan McGregor and as an older man by Albert Finney) is not an easy man to get to know, but everybody he meets loves him. His elaborate stories--of his encounter with a witch whose glass eye shows a man's death, his dramatic exodus from his hometown with a giant, his return with gorgeous Siamese twins, his job in the circus, meeting his wife, his son's birth and his own attempts to catch the biggest fish in the lake--entertain everyone who hears them, except his estranged son William (Billy Crudup), who's heard them all too many times. He'll hear them again, though; the film shows us the father's fantasy world in all its Tim Burton glory, flashing back to Edward's youth and showing the stories as he tells them. Juxtaposed with these colorful imaginings are scenes of Edward's bittersweet reality: He's old now, and dying. William has come home hoping to confront his father, whose incredible fictions enriched his childhood but made him an embittered adult. They both know that soon, the only story left to tell will be the one whose ending Edward has kept secret his entire life: the vision of his death that the witch showed him in her glass eye.