Heath Ledger’s an eerie presence in ‘The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus’

Published 6:47 pm Thursday, January 7, 2010

A star-crossed production if ever there was one, “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” is the kind of movie you want to root for, whatever its problems might be.

I did root for it. But it has problems.

Director Terry Gilliam had shot more than half of his picture in London in January 2008 when his star, Heath Ledger, died at the age of 28. Since Ledger had some scenes yet to film, it looked like the end of the movie.

Thanks to a quirk in the film’s design, Gilliam actually figured out a way to complete the movie with other actors playing Ledger’s part — and make the shift seem logical.

The sleight-of-hand, perfectly appropriate to a film about magic and trickery, is ingenious. The problems lie elsewhere.

The Imaginarium itself is some kind of traveling show housed in a carriage that looks like it belongs in the 19th century, not modern London. Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) is an elderly gent with dubiously mystic powers.

Against all economic logic, he keeps his sideshow afloat and maintains a staff of three. With him is his daughter Valentina (Lily Cole), and there’s also the youthful Anton (Andrew Garfield), who looks like a puppy when Valentina is around. Which is all the time.

Dr. Parnassus also employs a little person (Verne Troyer, from the “Austin Powers” pictures), who acts as his Shakespearean Fool, speaking truth to the supposed wise man. Gilliam seems tickled by Troyer’s personality, and the scenes between the doctor and his adviser are quite charming.

And Heath Ledger? He plays an amnesiac, rescued from hanging by the troupe.

Maybe audiences in the future will have an easier time watching the scene in which his body is discovered swinging from a London bridge, but it’s an unsettling sight when his tragic death (an accidental overdose of prescription medication) is still very much in the public mind.

At various points people pass through a magic mirror in the Imaginarium, which transports them to unreal vistas — a plainer world than “Avatar,” but a similarly digitally transformed idea.

In those worlds, Ledger’s character is played by the tag team of Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell, who nobly step in to fill out the more fantastical sections of the storyline.

That story has Dr. Parnassus keeping ahead of the devil (Tom Waits), with whom he has struck a bargain some years earlier. It’s just a thread, and it’s just barely enough to keep the forward motion going.

Otherwise, the movie is cluttered with Gilliam’s brand of visual hallucinations, some of which look like they’d fit into his old “Monty Python” animations. Since this is his strong suit, you’d better have a fondness for that kind of imagery.

Ledger’s performance is spirited, although he looks as confused as everybody else about what he’s doing (he’s an amnesiac, so some latitude is granted). His presence gives an already rather dark movie an overlay of unintended, persistent sadness.

“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” (three stars)

Terry Gilliam directs this characteristic picture, which is high on visual hallucination and thin on coherent storytelling. It has something to do with a traveling show and a magic mirror, but the whole project is overshadowed by the presence of Heath Ledger, who was working on this when he died. His performance is spirited (and completed with work by Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell).

Rated: PG-13 for language, subject matter

Showing: Alderwood Mall, Meridian, Metro, Thornton Place