Doctor Parnassus is a couple thousand years old and he has a drinking problem. Oh and a gambling problem too. His biggest problem is that he only gambles with the devil. His 16 year-old daughter is up for grabs in his latest bet. He has only a few days to capture five souls so he doesn’t lose her forever to Mr. Nick, the devil. Stuck in the middle of the two gambling immortals are Percy, Anton, Tony, and Parnassus’ daughter, Valentina.
Heath Ledger plays Tony in his final screen role. He died during filming. This threw the film into development limbo and director Terry Gilliam rushed to rewrite the script in an attempt to finish the film and still include Ledger’s footage. The remaining scenes were shot with three other actors: Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell. Each actor played a version of Tony after he stepped into Parnassus’ magical mirror. The actors guided the souls to Parnassus in an attempt to help him win back his daughter.
Percy, Anton and Valentina are part of Parnassus’ traveling show. They perform for small crowds to make money to eat. Anton performs magic tricks and Valentina just looks pretty. The movie is a lot like that. A lot of magic tricks to cover the many plot holes. The film is all over the place and the occasional visual sleight of hand doesn’t fool anyone. Gilliam creates fantastic worlds pulled from his own insane imagination but the effort is lost on a film that has so much missing.
Gilliam’s brilliance is often his downfall. Like any great artist, he’s the only one that really knows what is happening. It’s difficult for him to pull anything from inside his head. It probably comes out in this confusing mass of colors and words that only he can put together. In the case of Parnassus I think he forgot to translate a few things for us and because of this the film suffered.
I have great respect for Gilliam and all of the actors that stepped up to finish the film. It is amazing that they gave their pay checks to Ledger’s daughter. I commend the filmmakers for preserving Ledger’s last role. However, they should have worked a little longer so that they could have made a better film to add to his legacy.
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