Movie Review: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Terry Gilliam is the master of trippy, mind-bending movies and he Imaginarium of Doctor Parnasius was true to form. It had popped to the top of my Netflix queue and I wanted to see it since it was the last movie with Heath Ledger.  I wasn’t sure how they would stitch it together since the actor died midway into filming, but Gilliam didn’t miss a beat. Perhaps because his movies are so open to numerous interpretations, adapting characters replace Ledger seemed perfectly natural. The fairly straightforward story is about a man, Doctor Parasssus, who makes a deal with the devil.  Then years later, he comes to collect the debt, in the form of the doctor’s daughter.  She’s about to turn 16 years old which is apparently the age when the devil gets what he’s owed.  Along with that plot is the love storyline of the daughter torn between two suitors. The first is the awkward but sincere age appropriate boy who servers as a sidekick and musician in the Imaginarium. Then there’s Tony, the mysterious amnesiac who they cut down from hanging under a bridge.  Ledger plays Tony as a slick character with charm and charisma to spare, but short on scruples.  The wacky plot unfolds with a healthy dose of humor provided by Verne Troyer (mini me) as well as the “other” Tonys played by Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law.  They filled in with the untimely death if Ledger and donated their salaries to his daughter Matilda.  Although this wasn’t in the original script, it adds an entirely new and fantastic dimension to the movie.  If you’re not a Gilliam fan, this probably won’t be for you but I found it inventive and entertaining.