JUNE 1 2019 LISTENER 57
ecstatic reverie that still somehow captures
the naive courage of its hero.
But who is the hero? Adam Driver plays
Toby, an egotistical adman shooting a
commercial in Spain. When production
stalls (ha ha), Toby returns to the small
village where, as a student, he once shot a
low-budget Don Quixote. He discovers the
humble shoemaker who played the knight
errant (an extraordinary Jonathan Pryce)
has tipped over into believing the fiction.
He now roams the countryside searching
for worlds to conquer and, above all, his
great love, Dulcinea.
Thus the pompous director must
become the peasant sidekick, Sancho
Panza. Two figures, well out of touch with
reality. “This will be a marvellous day
for adventure! I can feel it in my bones!”
Quixote exclaims. “I need to call my
office,” Toby replies bitterly.
Gilliam’s own fevered experience
has given him a taste of the mania in
Cervantes’ text, and the film is a tribute
to limitless imagination and extravagant
flights of fancy, full of strange diversions
and confected set pieces. In a way, it
pays to know just how fraught the film’s
journey has been, all the better to appreci-
ate the metapoint being made: good art
demands an undying devotion, even if it
takes the maker to the edge of insanity.
Don Quixote is by no means flawless.
The psychoactive quality wears off with
30 minutes to go, and some of the moral
heart is swamped by those constant
oddities. Nevertheless, it’s remarkable
to witness: a demonstration of Gilliam’s
vision and sheer bloody-mindedness.IN CINEMAS NOW
Adam Driver and an extraordinary Jonathan
Pryce in The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.advantage will be in how they can trade
stocks milliseconds ahead of their com-
petitors – one flap of a hummingbird’s
wings. Rising to foil them is their old boss,
a rapacious Wall Street trader played by
Salma Hayek – she’s Gordon Gekko in a
pantsuit.
And here’s the thing: it is not based on a
true story. The premise is fictional, yet the
Canadian production still has an authen-
tic ring to it. It’s composed mostly of two
types of scenes: the combative boardroom
meeting and the rural dig site. It’s a testa-
ment to Kim Nguyen’s directing, and the
strength of the performances, that these
otherwise tedious settings can be surpris-
ingly engaging.
Both leads play against type. Eisen-
berg has always been a machine-gunner
of dialogue, radiating neurotic energy.
But here there is proof that he can
play pensive and troubled. Skarsgård
has long been a hulking Adonis, but as
Anton, he’s transformed: posture slumped,
shy and drawn inward, bespectacled and
bald.
If there’s anything that downs the
drama, it’s a tendency to moralise. Nguyen
insists on giving us two ethical messen-
gers: first, a stomach ulcer that gnaws
away at Vincent, and second, an Amish
farmer who doesn’t want his land defiled
by corrupting technology.
We would have grasped that rapacity
and greed were under interrogation in the
story without the need for these obvi-
ous metaphors. Vincent and Anton want
money for nothing and, as with most
American Dreams founded on an illusion,
that dream will inevitably crumble around
their ears.
IN CINEMAS NOWTOP END WEDDING
directed by Wayne BlairY
ou know you’re in a different kind
of romcom with Top End Wedding
when one of the big stars is called
Katherine and she’s not a bridesmaid
but a gorge. The Australian film spends
a fair bit of time on scenic detours as
indigenous lawyer Lauren (co-writer
Miranda Tapsell) and her whitefella
fiancé Ned (Gwilym Lee) abandon their
upwardly mobile lives in Adelaide for
hastily arranged nuptials in the North-
ern Territory. Their extended road trip
gets off to a bumpy start thanks to a
mission to find the mother of the bride
who has abandoned her dad for reasons
unknown. But once the contrivances
wear off and the sense of place kicks in- especially when it arrives on the Tiwi
Islands, north of Darwin – Top End Wed-
ding finally finds its feet on its way to
becoming something sweet and gently
affecting.
IN CINEMAS NOW
Russell Baillie
JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3 PARABELLUM
directed by Chad StahelskiT
his third edition in the John Wick
series begins as it means to carry
on: an opening slugfest in the
New York Public Library with Keanu
Reeves’ epony mous hitman bludgeon-
ing a seven-foot goon to death with a
book of Russian folk tales. Business as
usual, then. The plot is still daft, the
writing risible, the interludes between
fights nothing but dense atmosphere,
and Reeves has the emotional range
of a chest of drawers. But, boy, he can
fight. What the John Wick films do well
is violence: brutal, excessive, emasculat-
ing violence. They hark back to Jackie
Chan’s golden days in Hong Kong,
when combat was gorgeously choreo-
graphed (dare I say balletic?) and you can
actually see what’s going on – no cutting
the blows and jabs to pieces in the edit.
It’s huge, dumb, aggressive, vicious and,
ultimately, enormous fun.
IN CINEMAS NOW
James RobinsFilms are rated out of 5:
(abysmal) to (amazing)SHORT TAKES