The Arthurian legend of a maimed warrior healed by the innocence of “a perfect fool” is given a magical update by director Terry Gilliam, tripping the light fantastic in his highly individual manner in this fantasy drama.
Jack Lucas (Jeff Bridges) is a hugely successful but venomous shock-jock radio phone-in host. A typically reckless remark over the airwaves about “wiping out yuppie scum” triggers a random massacre at a fashionable Manhattan bar (the gory scene is chillingly rendered), and Lucas goes into an alcoholic decline, taking his career with him.
But a chance encounter with a mystical vagrant called Parry (Robin Williams) seems to offer him an opportunity for redemption.
Parry fancies himself and his fellow street people as chivalrous knights in pursuit of the Holy Grail. He thinks he’s spotted it in a magazine photo. It sits in the library of the Fifth Avenue mansion of billionaire Langdon Carmichael, played by the film’s production designer, Mel Bourne, who deserves accolades for transforming New York into Gilliam’s magic kingdom.
In truth, Parry the fool is a tragic figure, a former professor of medieval history who has escaped into a dream world rather than face the memory of his wife’s violent death.
That horror is manifested as a flame-throwing red knight on horseback who looms up on Manhattan’s traffic-clogged streets to chase Parry.
The movie is burdened with clanging plot machinery. Parry tells Lucas the myth of the soul-sick Fisher King, whose spirit is reawakened by a fool. Learning that Parry’s wife was one of the victims in the restaurant shooting, Lucas tries to ease his guilt by giving Parry money. But romance is Parry’s obsession.
The dream girl he is too shy to approach is a mousy, uncoordinated office worker named Lydia (a perfectly cast Amanda Plummer).
In a breathtaking scene, lyrically shot by Roger Pratt, Parry follows Lydia to Grand Central Station and watches her in love-struck awe, oblivious to the fact that the rest of the rush-hour crowd has broken into a waltz.
Lucas reunites Parry with his damsel by getting him a job at the video store owned by his wildcat girlfriend, Anne (Mercedes Ruehl), and telling Lydia she’s won a free membership.
In a show-stopping turn, Michael Jeter, playing a homeless cabaret singer, goes to Lydia’s office to deliver the prize, which he presents to her while belting out a number from Gypsy in drag.
Before long, Lydia and Parry are double-dating with Anne and Lucas at a Chinese restaurant. Overcome at being in the presence of his beloved, Parry sings an inappropriate Groucho Marx song, Lydia the Tattooed Lady.
In an inspired stroke, Williams warbles this ribald ditty as a love ballad. As the camera slowly pans back, we see Lucas and Anne, who are also caught up in Parry’s sweet fervour. In detailing the interlocking stories of four unlikely lovers, the film finds its heart.
Gilliam, however, correctly lets harsh reality intrude. Lucas goes back to his old ways, the lovers are divided, and the red knight reappears. If the film had ended here, The Fisher King might have achieved a stabbing pathos.
Instead, Lucas must try to save Parry by scaling the wall of Carmichael’s fortress and capturing the alleged Holy Grail.
Gilliam has an eerie knack for wringing visionary, heart-tugging power from unsentimental yet bizarre material, and Bridges’s mythical search for redemption in the enchanted kingdom of New York fits the bill exactly.
It’s a magnificent perusal of what fires and feeds the soul, with super-tramp Robin Williams keeping his trademark zaniness in check until it really counts.
Parry
Robin Williams Jack Lucas
Jeff Bridges Lydia
Amanda Plummer Anne Napolitano
Mercedes Ruehl Lou Rosen
David Hyde Pierce Sondra
Lara Harris Red Knight
Chris Howell Television anchorman
Warren Olney News reporter
Frazer Smith Sitcom actor
Harry Shearer Sitcom wife
Melinda Culea Superintendent
Al Fann Jamaican bum
William Jay Marshall John the bum
William Preston Homeless cabaret singer
Michael Jeter Limo bum
Ted Ross Stockbroker bum
John Heffernan Straitjacket yuppie
Richard LaGravenese Bag lady
Anita Dangler
Director
Terry Gilliam
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In truth, Parry the fool is a tragic figure, a former professor of medieval history who has escaped into a dream world rather than face the memory of his wife’s violent death.
Before long, Lydia and Parry are double-dating with Anne and Lucas at a Chinese restaurant. Overcome at being in the presence of his beloved, Parry sings an inappropriate Groucho Marx song, Lydia the Tattooed Lady.
Gilliam has an eerie knack for wringing visionary, heart-tugging power from unsentimental yet bizarre material, and Bridges’s mythical search for redemption in the enchanted kingdom of New York fits the bill exactly.
