In Theaters: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

When Tony enters the Imaginarium with a portly older woman, for example, he is wryly transformed into a better-looking version of himself, which in this first instance happens to be embodied by Johnny Depp. Trying to rid himself of his besotted charge, Tony floats her down an impromptu river (Gilliam's creepy/crazy/cool headscapes put Peter Jackson's custom-made afterlife in The Lovely Bones to shame) with a hard sell about the dead icons of our time -- Dean, Di, Valentino -- and the immortality that early death brought them: "They're gods," he says, "They'll never get old." Lines like that seem to hold nothing more than idle provocation, lacking a justifying argument or ideology.

And yet the film survives. It does not prevail, but it endures, hitting a disarmingly sweet note of resignation after a wildly conceived climax that involves bobbies in knee skirts and fishnets and Tony's unmasking as a very bad man. Even in rags, even while gambling his daughter away, Plummer maintains his officially unshakable dignity; Waits has got diabolical glee wrapped up and tied with a pencil moustache bow; and both Cole (a model and first-time actress) and Garfield (already an up-and-comer in Britian) give terrifically witty, impassioned performances despite the very tricky material. Ledger, in fact, seems the only discordant piece of casting, if not due to any inherent fault of his own. It seems cosmically beside the point to say it, but he simply does not look well; yet his charisma powers through Gilliam's knottiest scenes. His literal lacking, both on screen and off, pulls what would otherwise be a melancholy lark into the lower, more memorable depths of sadness -- a place it neither wants nor deserves to be.

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