REVIEW: ‘The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus’

As a director, Terry Gilliam has had a maddeningly uneven career. For every gem like “Time Bandits,” “Brazil” and “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen,” there’s a misstep like “The Brothers Grimm,” “Tideland” and his latest film, “Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.” While visually stunning and full of the whimsy of his earlier triumphs, “Parnassus” sinks under the weight of its desire to be mysterious and quirky.

“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” Rated PG-13 • 122 minutes Starring Christopher Plummer, Heath Ledger, Lily Cole, Tom Waits Directed by: Terry Gilliam Written By: Terry Gilliam and Charles McKeown RCC Rating: Worth Watching On DVD

The title character is an improbably old leader of a troupe of street performers, trundling along the streets of London in a mobile stage and enticing people to step up and enter the Imaginarium. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) enters a trance, then audience members bravely step through a fake mirror and into the environment of their fantasies, made real by the magic of Parnassus’ mind. Along the way, the troupe saves the life of a man hanging off a bridge, the charismatic Tony (Heath Ledger), who assists Parnassus in a wager he’s made with Mr. Nick (Tom Waits). Nick, who may or may not be the Devil, bets Parnassus he won’t be able to accrue five people’s souls before Nick does. The prize of the wager is the soul of Parnassus’ lovely daughter Valentina (the stunningly beautiful Lily Cole).

The synopsis you just read would have better served the film had Gilliam and co-writer Charles McKeown given audiences that information in its first 15 minutes. However, the movie meanders its way along, doling out the story beats in dribs and drabs while preferring to string the viewers along. Even when the time on the wager is beginning to run out, there’s no sense of urgency in the movie’s pacing at all until the last 30 minutes, when “Parnassus” kicks into gear and becomes fairly engrossing.

As always, Gilliam is an amazing visual composer. The time spent inside the Imaginarium / Parnassus’ head is so rich and full of detail that you want to get lost in it yourself. Each time is tonally different, based on the person who enters the Imaginarium. There’s a myriad of environments and dream constructs, and they’re all amazing sights, even when the visions are bleak and full of despair. However, it’s so difficult slogging through the psuedo-magical dialogue and dodgy explanations of the theater troupe’s role in Parnassus’ life and mind that the viewer winds up confused, and bored.

Much has been made of Heath Ledger’s involvement in the movie – the last he worked on before his death – and the efforts by Ledger’s colleagues to step in and complete the film. The Imaginarium sequences are played by different actors – Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell – and the way it’s done makes as much sense as can be under the guise of the story. It’s less of a gimmick than it might be seem to be, and works well to complete the picture that could have easily been torpedoed by Ledger’s death.

Sadly, those performances and the amazing visual work are shackled by a dodgy, meandering script. “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” is a beautiful film, but in this case, beauty isn’t enough to hide a shoddy construction job.