Zero returns

Terry Gilliam’s latest falls flat by the iconic auteur’s lofty standards

I love Terry Gilliam. He is a maverick in the true sense, cutting a stubborn course through waters that have been almost invariably tempestuous. His cinematic style is singular; a virtue that often breeds conflict between his artistic vision and his creative freedom—always a surplus of the former and never enough of the latter. Because of that signature look and feel, you always know when you’re watching a Terry Gilliam movie. 

The guy has had a well-known run of bad luck. His battles with the studios on such films as “Brazil” and “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen” are the stuff of legend; as was his aborted, disastrous attempt to make “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.” That production broke down with shocking speed after Gilliam’s elderly leading man suffered a crippling injury and Mother Nature herself seemed to rise against him (as seen in the great documentary, “Lost in La Mancha”).

2009’s “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” suffered the tragic death of its star, Heath Ledger, mid-way through shooting. The fact that the film made it to theaters at all (with Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell standing in as Ledger’s character) is a testament to the tenacity of Gilliam’s indefatigable, slightly mad thirst for filmmaking.

Gilliam’s work can be difficult and epic; exquisitely crafted or charmingly lo-fi. It can be quirky, funny and abysmally dark, sometimes all in one scene. More often than not, he only flirts with the mainstream (aside from worthy hits like “12 Monkeys,” “The Fisher King” or, more cynically, “The Brothers Grimm”). Indeed, his most accessible works were the means to fuel his more eccentric passion projects, for better and worse. But the mainstream, however tacitly he indulged it, has slowly left Gilliam behind. He’s still trying to get “Don Quixote” made—ironically redefining the term “quixotic.”

His latest, “The Zero Theorem,” seems (on the surface) to be an exciting return to the weird, futuristic, dystopian joys of “Brazil.” Sadly, Gilliam has instead made a self-indulgent, masturbatory homage to his own tropes that isn’t nearly as memorable or interesting as his iconic best. 

It’s the near (?) future, a world where targeted advertising follows you on the street, cars are ubiquitous little boxes and people are mere cogs in the greater machine of capitalism. Get-rich-quick hucksters bait the impoverished, and Batman has a church. Qohen (Christoph Waltz) is a brainiac misfit who only leaves his dilapidated cathedral to go to work at Mancom, an Orwellian multi-national that employs mathematicians who work with “esoteric data” in an attempt to conglomerate all known information within a supercomputer called the Neural Net. 

The reclusive and seemingly schizophrenic Qohen (who always refers to himself in the royal “we”) hates going in to work and prefers never to leave his derelict home due to a mysterious phone call he’s obsessively waiting for. He’s also statistically more productive there, coding radiant, multi-colored vials of information for uploading to the Neural Net. 

The closest thing he has to a friend is his dweeby but kind-hearted supervisor, Joby (David Thewlis, being awesome). After Qohen’s plea to telecommute is ignored by a panel of company doctors, Joby invites him to a bizarre costume party where an overtly sexy French girl (Mélanie Thierry) saves his life and he inadvertently becomes acquainted with Management (Matt Damon), the head of Mancom. Although he finds Qohen to be “quite insane,” Management taps him for a mysterious, long-running, unfinished project of the utmost importance: The Zero Theorem. 

Working from a debut feature script by Pat Rushin, Gilliam mines his favorite old themes in the contemporary. The lonely man being crushed by the insurmountable forces of modern society, the dehumanizing malaise of corporate culture on the human soul, the emptiness of a life without love or passion—they all rear their familiar heads. 

Qohen is the focus, a functional hermit who has only vague memories of joy. He dreams of a black hole as if chaos itself were the warm answer to his Sisyphusian monotony, endlessly plugging equations into equations, building Minecraft-esque towers of math that implode when their logic doesn’t add up, and then having to start all over again. Enter the uber-hot French girl (Thierry), who becomes his siren, coaxing Qohen into a virtual world of lusty affection and out of his spiral of discontent, allowing love to threaten the system.

Sounds good, right? I love the sandbox this film plays in, and it’s one that Gilliam helped build. Unfortunately, “The Zero Theorem” is a frustrating amalgam of fan service and existentialist wankery that holds glimpses of a compelling film within its half-baked ideas. It’s form with only fragile substance. The story is almost a MacGuffin. It doesn’t amount to anything satisfactory for the audience, instead relying on shopworn dystopia and paced with the momentum of a particularly colorful lava lamp. 

The images and design, bereft though they are of much narrative weight, are a high point, at least, and they’re pure Gilliam. He’s used his clearly limited budget well, utilizing evocative locations with some savvy set design to make the world feel tangible, even when the story doesn’t. Waltz is fine as Qohen, though he’s saddled with a character that is almost an avatar. Thierry has the thankless role of the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold, and though she’s charming and hot enough, she’s written like the hologram she’s meant to be (she doesn’t have sex, but enjoys “tantric biometric interfacing”). Among all the rote, calculated characters, David Thewlis shines, stealing every moment he’s on screen and breathing life into Gilliam’s otherwise awkward (holy shit, that Tilda Swinton rap scene) and derivative love affair with himself.

I wanted to love “The Zero Theorem,” and there are some lovable elements among the spinning wheels of superficiality. There are some familiar signs of what could have been, hints of his dogged ingenuity. Indeed, Gilliam culls some of the most arresting images of his late career here and the film undeniably feels unified and deliberate. But the appeal is only skin deep—artifice that looks like originality. And if that seems harsh, it’s only because I expect more from a genius.