The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus - Film Review

Posted on 18. Dec, 2009 by Administrator in Film/TV

by Brent Simon

It’s hard to bear much ill will toward Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, given that it was thrown into a state of disarray when Heath Ledger passed away last year, with much but not all of the film complete. Nevertheless, the movie doesn’t really work, apart from the gobsmacked reaction elicited by a small handful of vividly imagined set pieces. A fantastical morality tale set in a grubby present day of Gilliam’s twisted devising, it sort of ambles along, like a scavenger hunt with an ill-defined search list, before collapsing in on itself in a finale of utter inconsequentiality.
Blessed with the extraordinary gift of guiding the imaginations of others, Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) is also a drunk and inveterate gambler who, thousands of years ago, made a series of bets with the devil (Tom Waits) in which he first won immortality but later lost his daughter Valentina (Lily Cole) once she reached her 16th birthday. Desperate to protect her from her impending fate, Dr. Parnassus again renegotiates the wager, with the winner now being determined by whoever first collects five souls. Parnassus and his traveling theater show companions (Verne Troyer, Andrew Garfield) happen upon an amnesia-stricken stranger, Tony (Heath Ledger), and together they set out to woo a quintet of well-heeled ladies into willingly crossing over to the other side. More trippiness then ensues.
Rather disconcertingly, Ledger’s first appearance on screen comes with Tony hanging by his neck from a bridge. Ledger is replaced by Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell in three discrete fantasy sequences within the mirrored world that constitutes Parnassus’ playground, and this “fix” actually works well within the narrative. The story, though, has no innate emotional pull. No one does cracked-world visuals quite like Gilliam, but he’s at his best when he has a strong producer sitting on him, or more strongly defined source material, and neither of these are the case with The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Score it an “I,” for Incomplete.

(PG-13, 2 out of 5 )
Would Like This: Forgiving fans of The Brothers Grimm, Alice in Wonderland, The Fisher King

Share this story with your friends: