Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 26-January-03
Spoiler Rating: Medium

The Fisher King (1991)

In 1991, when "The Fisher King" first came out, I was no doubt a little less jaded, moderately less experienced, and a lot more receptive to the notion of angels, fairy godmothers, inextricable destiny, and other manifestations of the supernatural than I am today. Back then, I enjoyed this would-be Arthurian parable and was willing to believe, if only for two hours, that some ray of divinity could pierce the smog of New York and account for one man's spiritual redemption at the hands of a sensitive, romantic, preternaturally funny and highly educated bum with delusional visions of kibitzing pixies and a firebreathing knight on horseback. Nowadays, however, this stuff strikes me as a bunch of ill conceived, poorly executed hokum. Although I approached "The Fisher King" the second time around with open arms, expecting to be amused and touched by it as I once had been, whatever magic it may have possessed has ceased to work on me. I now seek subtlety, I guess, and its lack makes all the difference.

The story follows a hotshot radio personality and wannabe actor named Jack Lucas (Jeff Bridges) whose life is forever changed when one of his listeners takes his misanthropic tirades a little too seriously and commits a mass murder/suicide in a popular New York restaurant. Plunging headlong into a spiral of guilt and self-loathing, Jack retreats into the bitter obscurity of a detached life with Anne (Mercedes Ruehl, who won an Academy Award for her trouble), the kindhearted and sexy owner of a video store who, for some reason, loves and supports him. But it's not Jack's fate to remain tortured forever, so after a while he stumbles upon a crazy hobo (Robin Williams) who calls himself "Parry" but was once a happy college professor with a different name, before he became the self-proclaimed "janitor of God." Discovering that they share the same tragedy, Jack selfishly tries to use Parry as his instrument of atonement, a way of lifting the sentence that has been placed on him, but as he endures Parry's company and their many contrived adventures (including a quest for the Holy Grail), each truly becomes the other's salvation. Of course, along the way they discover not only their better selves, but also romantic love ('cause Hollywood's laws are as adamantine as God's).

Part of the problem with "The Fisher King" may be that director Terry Gilliam is a very strange fellow with a narrative style and tone that require both a certain frame of mind and material that suits them (as the bleak and futuristic "12 Monkeys" did). Harkening back to a medieval tale, "The Fisher King" aims to illustrate the latent beauty of human life, how happiness and fulfillment are offered to us every day, if only we can get beyond our pain and self-absorption and discover the paths that lead to it. There's a mighty fine line between the magical and the ridiculous, however, and Gilliam isn't the man to walk it. The movie veers back and forth between heavy drama, romantic comedy, and outright slapstick, making for a rather bewildering experience, especially when you throw in Williams at his manic, um, best. (In all fairness, he does rein it in when necessary, but he isn't asked to nearly enough.) In addition, perhaps to highlight the idea that potential lurks everywhere (or else just because it's the easy way out), everybody in the movie is a highly embroidered version of a type of real-life loser: Jack is a pathetic wreck, but gorgeous and self aware; Parry is a traumatized nut job, but cute and incredibly wise; Anne is a tough aging broad, but endlessly tolerant and giving; and Lydia, Parry's awkwardly injected love interest (played by Amanda Plummer), is a lonely and desperate freak, but absolutely accepting and faithful. The movie suggests that the very thing these people seek is right under their noses, and that all it takes is a few suicide attempts, chance meetings, moments of heartfelt bonding, mishaps with Chinese food, visions from above, and madcap escapades for them to find it. These situations and characters are probably meant to represent the wild and wonderful possibilities of life, but Gilliam lacks the finesse to elevate them from frivolity into metaphor. If a movie is to generate real magic, it needs to have some grounding of plausibility so that it leaves the viewer with a feeling of "why not?" rather than "as if!" This does not happen here.

I hope that my change of heart relative to "The Fisher King" doesn't spell the end for me, and I don't think it does. Can I ever again enjoy a film that combines the spiritual with the everyday, that speaks of hope and redemption, that aims to prove that the magic and mystery of a more credulous age still pervade our modern existence? Sure I can. Just give me a story set in the real world, not fantasyland; and treasures at the end of journeys, not rainbows; and characters made of flesh and blood, not fairy dust. With these things on hand, I might even forgive kibitzing pixies.

Copyright © 2003 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.