The Zero Theorem

Terry Gilliam returns to Brazil-like territory with his latest film The Zero Theorem, an original screenplay by first-time feature writer Pat Rushin. While the existential themes and wide-angle lensed mise en scene that combines technology from different eras will remind viewers of Gilliam’s early masterpiece Brazil (1985) and his popular success 12 Monkeys (1995), it has more in common with the disappointing, muddled features that comprise the majority of his later directorial output--Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), The Brothers Grimm (2005), and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009). The Zero Theorem tells the story of Qohen Leth (Christoph Waltz) a bald, disturbed, expert computer drone living a reclusive existence in a burnt-out church, working for an Orwellian company on data crunching activities that resemble the dullest video games imaginable. When his boss (Matt Damon) assigns him to a project that purports to prove that life has no meaning, he believes solving the puzzle will get him closer to receiving a mysterious call he’s waited for all his life. This is a heady premise that calls out for a director like Gilliam, whose mastery of distinctive visuals can often help maintain a viewer’s interest in a film that’s all ideas and no story. But while this director’s movies still have a distinctive handmade quality, the more he augments his imagined worlds with digital flourishes, the more generic they look. One only need glance at any few seconds of The Zero Theorem to know it’s a Gilliam picture, but exposure to more than thirty minutes of it and you’ll soon be asking, is this all there is? The dystopian world of this film feels like one big set and a few uninspired digital mattes.

Gilliam is a director who always puts image before story, and the plots of his movies are often buried in pictorial detail. But his earlier films (many of which he co-authored) have enough narrative thrust to keep us grounded as we marvel at his astonishing, whimsical, and complex imagery. When you left the theater after Brazil--or Jabberwocky (1977), Time Bandits (1981), and even the supremely uneven The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1998)--your head swam with the picture’s intelligent commentary, hilarious observations, and fascinating speculation. The Zero Theorem, on the other hand, is just a bunch of amusing details layered on overly familiar concepts that don’t stick with us because they are explored only on the surface. Like analogue copies of a pristine original, each subsequent replication of the ideas and images from Gilliam's visionary masterpieces degrades and deteriorates until almost nothing remains but a burry mess.

The Zero Theorem consists of little more than a repetitive series of interactions between Qohen and the few other people in his life. Dr. Shrink-ROM (Tilda Swinton playing a hilarious Scottish skype-psychologist, or maybe she’s a computer program?) is welcome whenever she shows up, but the other supporting parts--Qohen’s supervisor (David Thewlis), his boss’s boy-genius son (Lucas Hedges), and his love interest (Mélanie Thierry)--wear out their welcome quickly. No character is developed beyond who they are when we first meet them, and each of their reappearances add nothing to the story. This 106-minute movie feels a great deal longer because it lacks a compelling structure and the scenes don’t build on each other. By contrast, the seemingly repetitive events in Brazil are, in actuality, intricately layered and escalate to a sublime climax. Though Brazil is long, it’s so satisfying that you want to watch it over and over. The Zero Theorem is just the opposite--it makes you feel like you’re stuck in a hamster wheel watching the same interminable scenes over and over. I don’t think that’s the intention of Gilliam or Rushin, but it’s the only sensation their film elicits.