Terry Gilliam’s fantasy has enough invention and warmth to make its muddle frustrating. Christopher Plummer and Tom Waits give it a human scale, but the crowded storytelling keeps getting in their way.
Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is worth considering if extravagant fantasy matters more than a well-shaped story. There is pleasure in its appetite for strange images, and an affection for its characters that keeps the muddle from becoming merely tiresome. But the screenplay by Terry Gilliam and Charles McKeown keeps demanding fresh attention before the previous idea has had time to matter. We can enjoy individual passages without feeling much urgency about the next one.
Christopher Plummer gives Doctor Parnassus a grandeur that looks difficult to maintain, and his weariness is more affecting than the film’s busier attempts to enchant. We were moved by him: the effort beneath that grand manner makes his disappointment feel ordinary and recognisable. Tom Waits, playing the Devil, is amusing without seeming remotely reassuring, and his ease is welcome in a film that can feel strained. Their interplay gives us something simple to attend to, two actors who know how much can be done without hurrying.
Heath Ledger’s Tony is engaging enough to make us wish the writing around him were less restless. Lily Cole gives Valentina a directness that helps when the film threatens to become wholly absorbed in its own cleverness. Andrew Garfield works hard to give Anton similar weight, but the character remains thinly conceived. The performances often persuade us to stay with a scene that the script itself has not made especially compelling; too much of the film’s emotional work is left to the cast.
Cinematographer Nicola Pecorini gives the fantasy images a richness that rewards looking around the frame, even when the story has loosened its hold. Production designers David Warren and Anastasia Masaro supply more visual invention than the screenplay can comfortably accommodate. The density is enjoyable at first, with enough competing detail to make the eye keep searching. Yet we kept wanting longer to look, rather than another change of visual direction, and the accumulation eventually becomes tiring.
Mick Audsley’s editing cannot quite make the film’s changes of direction feel necessary, though individual passages have energy. Too often, we find ourselves catching up when we ought to be becoming more involved. The music by Jeff Danna and Mychael Danna suits the extravagance, but adds to the feeling that the film rarely knows when it has given us enough. A little less insistence would help the quieter performances, which already have a fair amount to contend with.
Fantasy can tolerate loose ends, but it still needs a clear reason to carry us from one scene to the next. Terry Gilliam asks for more patience than these 123 minutes consistently repay, although the affection in the performances makes the indulgence understandable. Admirers of crowded, unruly fantasy will find things to enjoy; those hoping the cast will make the story easy to follow should lower their expectations. Watch it for Christopher Plummer and Tom Waits, and be prepared to do some of the sorting out.
