I love this movie so much

As Good As It Gets

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

If you know the story of Don Quixote, the Man from LaMancha you will find this film to be very clever in its layering of the original tale intertwined with a new tale that is infused about a narcissistic director (Adam Driver) who has lost his creative mojo whilst filming a feature film about Don Quixote in Spain. True to its original intent, it is a hybrid of reality and fantasy with the cruelties of the world as a backdrop to what could be with a touch of madness. It has much to say about youthful and brave creativity, and the artistic freedom that comes from true independence and the necessity of reframing your reality to match your circumstance. Love, passion, friendship, empathy, and generosity of spirit are explored in a modern version of the Spanish Inquisition. The jailhouse sequences are sublime in their mash up of real and unreal. It is a clever, witty and multilayered script with much for the literate fan to digest and plenty for newcomers to the tale to learn. Jonathan Price is perfect as Don Quixote and Adam Driver manages to deliver skepticism, narcissism and empathy along an increasingly complex tightrope with ease. The script is a marvel and the directing and edit are to be applauded. I don't know what the film offers people unfamiliar with the original story- but as I've been waiting for many years to see this film I can say it does not disappoint, I'll be thinking about it for a long, long time. Well done Terry Gillem

Ok, Toby (adam driver) actually sucks so much as a character. he doesn't earn anything that he gets by the end. He is upset that Anjelica (Joana Ribeiro) is "owned/objectified" by Russian Trump Alexei (Jordi Mollà) so much so that he throws coins at her feet offering to buy her himself, still seeing/treating her as an object, and at no point in the story realising the irony of this. Whats more, he manslaughters innocent and delusional Don Quixote (Jonathan Pryce) only to become the Hero by films end without ever earning the redemption for his past mistakes. Anjelica should have been the one to become Quixote. she is the one who's character arc from the beginning was to set out to do great things (to become a hero). Toby's arc was kind of unclear, was he looking for his youthful inspiration? The better ending is Anjelica becoming Dona Quixote, subverting the 16th century Male Hero Fantasy, bringing it into the 21st century (something Gilliam was attempting anyway), and breaking free of objectification to become her own master. A true character arc, moving from being owned (by Raul/Alexei) to becoming the story's Hero. Instead she was delegated to Toby's sideshow. ick. 5 stars.

The curse script. Against the general opinion I thought it was a wonderful movie, it's true, it has some script holes from a movie that has had so many problems at the time of realization. Removing that, Terry Gilliam offers us a different film in everything that we can think of. From the way of recording, with changes of ratio in the scenes, distortions of the image and a humor that does not present itself as such. In short, atypical film and not generalist, is not a "block buster" that appeals to the public and even those who are looking for a movie of this type may not like it. Terry Gilliam writes, but it is not the life of Brian or seeks to be.

Not a masterpiece, not a disaster, The man who killed Don Quixote has the qualities and faults of what it is, that is to say, basically, a film for one spectator only : Terry Gilliam himself. Announcing its legend in the opening credits, the film takes pleasure in referring quite openly to the misadventures of Lost in La Mancha, most often through lines put in the mouth of the producer played by Stellan Skarsgard. These winks would be at best anecdotic, at worst narcissistic, if we didn't realize little by little that, we are in the presence of a true cinematic exorcism. Exorcism of this damned project, certainly. Exorcism also, through the character of Toby, of what Gilliam could have become if he had listened to the sirens of advertising and had become a soulless hack. Exorcism finally, and this is the most touching, of what Gilliam is afraid of becoming (and that he may have already become for some), that is to say an old fool who no longer interests anyone, an old dreamer in a materialistic world, a relic from another time, mocked and ridiculed. Thus, despite all its failures (problems of rhythm, lack of breath due to lack of money, episodic structure that works randomly and unfortunately makes Quixote disappear many times), we can only admire this film which bears on its face its testamentary dimension. Transmission, summary of a life, return on his youth, everything is there. Gilliam is Quixote, Gilliam is Toby, Gilliam will die but Gilliam is immortal since his dreams are forever with us on film. This is the bittersweet and somewhat crazy statement of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, a film about films, a story about stories, an endless dream.