Wild and Wooly Imaginarium an Unfulfilling Trip
After Heath Ledger’s tragic and untimely death, it was widely assumed director Terry Gilliam’s latest fantastical effort The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus would never get finished. Thanks to a quick bit of re-writing on his and Charles McKeown’s (Ripley’s Game) parts, as well as the unpaid assistance of actors Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell, this was not going to be the case, everyone coming together to make sure the Oscar-winning The Dark Knight actor’s final performance would indeed see the light of day.
Lily Cole and Heath Ledger in Sony Pictures Classics' The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
While I am very glad that is the case, and while everyone involved (including the superstar trio) does superlative work, sadly I’m not altogether sure this whimsical modern day morality play was ultimately worth all of their collective efforts. As eye-popping and as visually imaginative as it all is, as a whole this minor curiosity plays more like a series of Gilliam greatest hits, elements of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Time Bandits, 12 Monkeys, Brazil and even The Brothers Grimm all making appearances.
The story itself is a total mishmash of concepts and ideas that frustratingly never come together. At its heart, the movie concerns itself with Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer), a strange old codger with a penchant for making bad bets with a mysterious man named Mr. Nick (Tom Waits). His latest involves his 16-year-old daughter Valentina (Lily Cole), and if this immortal conjurer can’t capture six souls for the powers of good before his opponent does the same for the opposite side he’ll end up losing her forever.
How does he do this? Apparently Dr. Parnassus has the power to enter a person’s psyche and guide them on a journey testing their moral fiber, a magic mirror granting both them and him access into a weirdly surreal world that would make Willy Wonka proud. It really is a place of pure imagination, and while everyone has to make their own choices as to which path they’ll ultimately choose it’s not like they can’t be politely nudged in one direction or the other.
Ledger plays Tony, a frazzled young man who Valentina and the rest of her father’s crew of vaudevillians save from hanging underneath a bridge. Why is he here and what part does he play? The answer to that is better left alone, not so much because to reveal it would be a massive spoiler but more because I have this feeling every individual viewer is going to interpret his importance in a different way. For my part, while I liked the character and found him amusedly eccentric that doesn’t mean I thought he was particularly necessary, Gilliam and McKeown not exactly going out of their way to give the guy three dimensions.
But then, that’s my problem with the whole movie. Everything here looks, sounds and acts far more important then it actually is. I get that this is a fantasy fable and all but Gilliam seems more interested in making things visually arresting than he does in having them make any sort of sense, things happening here because they can not because they drive the plot forward in any emotionally fulfilling sort of way. It’s all razzle without the dazzle, and no matter how great it all looked I still spent the majority of the film silently wishing for more.
Not that I am going to remotely dismiss the film completely out of hand. Anastasia Masaro’s production design is simply beyond remarkable, while Nicola Pecorini’s (Tideland) cinematography is suitably dreamlike. The acting is universally excellent, Verne Troyer a sort of surprising standout playing Dr. Parnassus’ right hand man and voice of reason. I also really enjoyed Waits’ devilish bad guy, and although he didn’t do much every time he showed up onscreen I discovered I could quite take my eyes off of him.
As for Ledger, his work here just shows once again how great a talent we sadly lost. I may not have been a total fan of the character but that doesn’t mean I still wasn’t impressed with just how fully the actor through himself into the part. He runs the gamut of emotions, sprinting out of the box with hyperactive exuberance only to slow back down into brotherly tenderness whenever the situation calls for it. Ledger is, in a word, wonderful, and I can’t help but wonder what this would have looked like had he been able to finish it.
Having Depp, Law and Farrell step in for him inside the Imaginarium works much better then I had anticipated it would, but like I said before I’m not quite sure their efforts were warranted. While the film looks amazing and is full of ocular delights the dramatics ones are sadly way too few and much too far between. Worst of all, the climax simply does not work, everything reeking of re-writes and re-thinks that don’t do justice to the time and effort I spent trying to decipher and ponder the plot’s first three-quarters.
Maybe I’m taking all this too seriously. Maybe I should cut Gilliam some slack and give him props for just being able to make sure this thing even got finished. Maybe I should do a lot of things, but even if that’s so I still can’t stop the feeling that I’ve seen way too much of The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus in the director’s other works too many times before. As impressive as much of it is, and as wonderful as it is to have Ledger back up on the silver screen where he belongs, the been there-done that quotient is far too high for my taste, visually wizardry only taking you so far when the dramatic tanks sadly runs on empty.
Film Rating: êê1/2 (out of 4)
