The Zero Theorem

When Terry Gilliam and I were governors of the British Film Institute we sat together at committee meetings, doodling. I hid my doodles because they were childlike; his, of course, were bloody brilliant. But then as he showed with his drawings for Monty Python and with films like Brazil and Twelve Monkeys, Gilliam has a visual sense like no other.

Much of that is evident in his latest film but unfortunately it’s as confusing to the mind as it is spectacular to the eye. It’s set in a garishly colourful and seedy dystopian future, where digital adverts flash from every wall and people worship at the Church of Batman the Redeemer.

Here Christoph Waltz works for a powerful being (or maybe organisation) known as the Management, personified in a cameo by Matt Damon, trying to crack the Zero Theorem. Waltz is a computer wizard, an agoraphobic on the verge of burnout, who lives in an abandoned church with a bunch of rats and a statue of Christ with an all-seeing camera instead of a head.

But what is the Zero Theorem? One suggestion is that it will reveal the secret of human happiness; another that it will simply show that existence is meaningless. It could be either, both or neither because in any event it’s insoluble, just as Pat Rushin’s screenplay is pretty well inscrutable.

Waltz, a deeply pessimistic character, refers to himself in the plural – ‘we’ not ‘I’ – as if he were speaking for humanity itself when he says things like ‘We are dying’. As he goes about his work, supervised by David Thewlis, all manner of things happen, some quite startling and all ingeniously composed by Gilliam.

But are we watching reality or just virtual reality?

Who or what, for instance, is the delicious little sexpot, played by Mélanie Thierry, who is sent not to seduce Waltz but to tease him sexually? And what is her purpose? Then there’s a virtual shrink (Tilda Swinton) who turns up on Waltz’s computer screen to confuse him further.

This is a curious mishmash of a film in which the imagery is often brilliant but the intellectual content difficult to fathom. Does Damon want Waltz to succeed or fail in his quest? And does he send his 15-year-old son (Lucas Hedges) to help or hinder him?

In a strong cast there’s an interesting mixture of acting styles. The shaven-headed Waltz, constantly waiting for a phone call that will explain the meaning of his own life, plays it straight; Damon is gravely menacing; Thewlis and Swinton go amusingly over the top, while the one to watch out for in future is Thierry, who in her sexy outfits comes across at times like a young Brigitte Bardot. In the end, though, this is an imaginative try that doesn’t really work. Well, you can’t win ’em all but Gilliam is a rare talent and we should always stoutly defend his right to make the kinds of film nobody else even attempts, whether they succeed or not.