THE FISHER FING
A film review by Frank Maloney
Copyright 1991 Frank Maloney
THE FISHER KING is a film directed by Terry Gilliam, written by Richard LaGravenese. It stars Robin Williams, Jeff Bridges, Mercedes Ruehl, and Amanda Plummer.
THE FISHER KING is the first film by Terry Gilliam the script of which he did not write. His previous films (including THE TIME BANDITS, BRAZIL, and THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN) are marked by particularly compelling visual fantasies, rococco dreams, wounded innocence, and whimsical anti-rationality. THE FISHER KING is also a recognizable Gilliam film. Here we have the innocent locked in combat with a cynical world. We have spectacle and fantasy and whimsy. But unlike the curious emotional detachment that marks his earlier films, there is here a commitment to emotion, to feeling, and the result is a more humane film.
It is also, no doubt to the regret of Gilliam's true believers, more disciplined, more controlled, less beguiling, less amazing, and less unconventional than his past auteuristic efforts. Neither is THE FISHER KING black in its humor or nihilistic in its conclusions. The film ends on one of the uppest notes you will ever see in a movie, but one that is so fantastic as to be tinged possibly with some small measure of irony.
Certainly, the film concentrates on its characters more than that has been previously the case. This is, at least in part, one result of using of using a star cast with recognizable names; and in part, the result of using LaGravenese's original script that emphasizes relationships and character development in a way that Gilliam's own script, spinning out their entrancing webs of fantasy and spectacle, never do.
The principal actors are each excellent in his or her own way. Robin Williams will naturally attract the lion's share of the attention to his performance as Parry, the lost and wounded street person and former mediaeval history prof. It is a very showy, energetic performance, indeed, and another high watermark in Williams' continuing growth from extemporizing stand-up comic to an actor of depth and control. This is not to say that Williams is any less the uniquely manic, pyrotechnical talent he's always been. But he's learning how to use it to create a character other than Robin Williams.
Jeff Bridges will deserve more praise for his achievement in THE FISHER KING than he is likely to get, the result of working with an actor as scene-stealing as Williams. However, Bridges turns in as fine a performance as he ever has as another wounded, lost victim of the psychosis we call the modern world. He's a former talk radio star who destroys his life and many others' with a mean-spirited, thoughtless, on-the-air remark. His character Jack reluctantly is drawn into the role of Parry's knight errant. Parry wants to recover the Holy Grail, which takes two forms in this movie: a cup in a millionaire's library and a mousy little klutz of an office drudge played by Amanda Plummer. Jack's role is to heal himself by healing Parry and the other characters. In this movie everyone is Percival and the Fisher King.
(Bridges is also the focus of an interesting subtext concerning homophobia. Jack tells Parry early on, "Don't ever hug me in public again." During the now well-known nude romp in the Meadow of Central Park, Jack says to himself that he expects "a homophobic jogger" to happen by and decide to avenge himself on his father. One of the important supporting characters is a wonderfully off-the-wall drag queen who sprawls across Jack's lap in one scene, a sprawl that turns into a protective cuddle. Jack becomes less and less worried about being mistaken for a gay man as the movie progresses to its final scene back in the Meadow. BTW, I loved the performance of the dragster; I don't have his name here, but he's become one of my current heroes. His scene delivering a singing message to Plummer is one of the great moments in this movie.)
The two women have featured roles, rather than roles that are visible in virtually every scene. Mercedes Ruehl plays Anne, Jack's patrona and savior and girl friend and sometime employer. Ruehl is best remembered for her role in MARRIED TO THE MOB. She brings to the role of Anne the same toughness with an added tenderness and nurturing; she suffers for love, but there are limits. She's strong-willed and supportive and enters into a unwilling friendship with Plummer than parallels somewhat Jack's relationship to Parry. Amanda Plummer is equally admirable as the egoless wallflower who blooms and discovers life. She tells Anne she has no personality; Anne tells her that au contraire she does have a personality -- sometimes she can be a real bitch. Plummer's character visibly opens up and flourishes like a sunrise to this suggestion: yes, being a bitch is a very good thing to be for her.
THE FISHER KING has much more linear plot than "real" Gilliam movies, but it has its moments of magic and wonder. You've probably heard about the waltzing scene by now; this scene is managed with such smoothness and deftness to make you gasp with admiration of the director's technical skill, as well as the auteur's vision. There are bits and pieces of paper and floss drifting unexplainedly and inexplicably through scenes. Do they have meaning? Does meaning? Gilliam uses New York as if it were a set built to his specs. His camera angles depict the rise and fall and rise of his characters. It is a complete film, using all a film's resources.
Be warned that the movie depicts horrifying violence, uses obscene language, nudity, sentiment (but not sentimentality), romance, and tears.
I highly recommend THE FISHER KING, even at full prices.
-- Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney .
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