Summary
When a disc jockey on the verge of blowing up causes a tragedy by giving some bad on-air advice, his entire life is thrown into chaos as he copes with being the cause of suffering and seeks redemption by helping a homeless man who is suffering from his own dementia fueled disfunction.
A Different Kind of Gilliam
Terry Gilliam is one of my favorite directors. I find even his worst films at least interesting. This is not one of them. This is among his best but it doesn’t feel like a lot of his other films.
Gilliam is usually very recognizable as a director for his over the top characters, strange comedy stylings, and next level production design, but there’s not even one little person in this film. The characters sometimes act strange but everyone around them thinks they are acting strange too. There are some great production design moments but the design is mostly seen in more subtle ways and especially in the more sophisticated camera movement Gilliam employs.
In all, this film seems to be focused more on thrilling the adult in you than the child which in itself is a departure for Gilliam. The adventures depicted here are not time traveling, swashbuckling, metaphors for good and evil. They are inner adventures of the heart and actions of individual men and women who feel worthless but long for meaning.
Acting Powerhouses
Without his trademark tricks of whimsical fantasy, Gilliam is left to rely on the typical tools of the director; the actors and the camera. Luckily, the casting for this film is fantastic.
Jeff Bridges heads up the movie as Jacky. His self focused shock jock persona is both entertaining and frustrating to watch as he obsesses more about his career than his fans who call in to his show for advice. When his performance style ends up in tragedy his remorse and self-prescribed penance seem justified and relatable, yet his inability to see that his selfishness has not gone away, simply shifted slightly, echoes the frustration we all feel when we see how prone we are to the same mistakes over and over again.
His love interest in the film Anne played by Mercedes Ruehl, is also perfectly cast. She excels at portraying a sort of real world self-sufficient working woman such as in “Last Action Hero" (a criminally underrated film). Here she is a video rental store owner who lives with Jack in the upstairs apartment. She is frustrated with his depression and lack of drive but loves him and hopes that he will someday find his way out of his funk. Her undercurrent, and sometimes over-current of rage born of hopes which have consistently been dashed upon the rocks ring true to anyone who has been in a hard relationship which consists more of sacrifice and determination than ephemeral pleasures, humor, and breezy contentment.
Finally, we meet Robin Williams’ character Perry, a homeless man struggling with mental illness (possibly schizophrenia) and depression over his dead wife. He rescues Jack from getting beat up and even committing suicide both literally and metaphorically, giving Jack something which pulls his gaze from himself to another and ultimately finding the healing that he sought all along.
Perry is a delightful character prone to fearsome visions, eccentric behavior, and a whimsical yet overly shy fancy for a mousey young woman whom he has never met. If not for his tragic backstory, Perry would be a classical sort of trickster god character who intervenes in Jack’s life in bizarre ways yet ultimately heals him of his wounds.
Transcendant Theme
The way that Jack is made whole by Perry is what makes this film one of my two favorite Terry Gilliam movies (“Brazil” being the other). The redemptive themes of not looking primarily inside and obsessing over improving yourself, but looking to others and caring for them above yourself as the path to healing is one of the most important things any of us have to learn in this life.
It goes against our grain to put others first, mostly because of the hurt we have suffered but also because of our own knowledge of the hurts we have caused. For most, the path to a sort of healing is forgetting what they have done wrong as time passes and allowing our guilt and pain to recede into the distance. That may stop the bleeding and crying, but it can never fully close the wound which affects both them who were wronged and they who wronged them.
This wound may only be healed by looking to another and seeing them, their healing, and their joy, as more important and worth pursuing than your own.
This film embodies that idea in one of the most heartfelt and touching ways, all from a director from whom I would never have expected that message.
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