I first started writing about cinema in the Post back in 2001, and at the end of that year announced the list of films I was particularly looking forward to – one of them, somewhat optimistically as it turned out, was Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. Well, it has taken somewhat longer than anticipated, but I am finally in a position to review this film. I must express my gratitude to Terry Gilliam for finally finishing it and getting it into cinemas, even with the disgracefully limited UK release it has eventually received – I could have ended up looking quite silly otherwise.

The travails of Gilliam's Don Quixote have become legendary, helped by the release of Lost in La Mancha in 2002 – intended as a making-of film to go on the DVD, it ended up as the chronicle of a collapsing film shoot, as an already-chaotic production was sent into a terminal spin by scheduling problems, terrible weather, injured stars, and much more. The Man Who Killed Don Quixote could justifiably have won a spot in the book The Greatest Movies Never Made   – but, as I have previously noted, 'never' is a bold choice of words, and a few of these projects have finally crept out into the world.

You can't accuse The Man Who Killed Don Quixote of a lack of self-awareness, as the opening credits ruefully acknowledge the long and troubled history of the production ('and now, after 25 years in the making, and unmaking'). This kind of playfulness continues on into the movie itself, where we encounter Toby (Adam Driver), a pretentious director surrounded by obsequious hangers-on, engaged in what looks like a troubled and chaotic production of a film of Don Quixote on location in Spain. Things are not going well, with abrasive crew-members, endless hold-ups, and a distinct lack of inspiration. The situation is not helped when Toby's boss (Stellan Skarsgard) leaves his trophy wife (Olga Kurylenko) in his care: she turns out to be much taken with Toby, and the director finds his amorous instincts over-riding his better judgement.

It all takes an odd turn, however, when a chance encounter with a gypsy selling various wares reunites Toby with a copy of the student film that made his name, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. He realises he made the movie in the same area, a decade or so earlier, using local people in the key roles – an old shoemaker, Javier (Jonathan Pryce) as Quixote, and a bar-owner's teenage daughter, Angelica (Joana Ribeiro), as Dulcinea. But a brief visit to the locations of the movie reveal that it has had a less positive effect on the other participants: Angelica became fixated on becoming a famous film star, which led to her being sucked into a netherworld of crime and degradation, while Javier became convinced he really was Don Quixote and abandoned his old life entirely.

Various misunderstandings from Toby's chaotic life lead to him being arrested by the police, but he is less than entirely delighted when the old man appears on horseback and 'rescues' him. The self-styled Quixote addresses Toby as Sancho Panza and declares that great deeds and adventures await the pair of them...

Don Quixote defeated Orson Welles long before Terry Gilliam ever attempted to film it, and entire films have been made recounting the tortuous progress of Gilliam's version to the screen: two of the director's choices to play Quixote died while the film was trapped in development hell, while other cast members have shifted roles in the meantime (Jonathan Pryce was originally supposed to be playing an entirely different part). Perhaps most significantly of all, the script of the movie has been significantly rewritten since Lost in La Mancha came out: I was expecting there to be an explicitly fantastical, time-travel element to this movie, but it has been removed.

In its place is something more subtle and unexpected, and rather more in keeping with Cervantes: the novel was published in two parts, many years apart, and the second volume opens with Quixote and Sancho rather nonplussed by the fame they have acquired as notable literary figures (not to mention outraged by an unauthorised sequel penned by other hands). The Man Who Killed Don Quixote manages a degree of the same kind of witty self-referentiality – nearly all the characters in it are aware of the book, and intent upon acting various bits of it out for different reasons. Despite (or perhaps because of) this, it is also a remarkably faithful adaptation of a novel which doesn't easily lend itself to other media.

You could argue this is a double-edged sword, for Don Quixote is a sprawling, episodic, picaresque, seemingly undisciplined book, and Gilliam's film is arguably many of these things too. The first act in particular feels slow and rambling, the story unsure of which way to go. But once Toby and Quixote set off on their peculiar exploits, it lifts enormously, and it slowly becomes clear that in addition to being an adaptation of Cervantes, this is also an engaging and affecting comedy-drama about Toby's own personal redemption and discovery of his own inner knight-errant.

Adam Driver wouldn't necessarily have been my first choice for this particular role, but he carries it off well: this is a proper leading role, which he does full justice too. While I would deeply love the chance to peep into the parallel quantum realms where this film was made five or ten years ago and John Hurt or Michael Palin played Quixote, I honestly can't imagine either of them doing a better job in the role than Jonathan Pryce does here – Pryce is enjoying one of those periods of late bloom that actors sometimes have, and this is one of his best performances.

Of course, Pryce and Gilliam have worked together a number of times in the past, and I first became aware of the actor following his lead performance in Brazil. His presence here isn't the only thing that recalls some of the classic Gilliam movies of the past: there is the way in which the present day and the medieval collide with each other (mostly figurative, here), and also the film's focus on the conflict between imagination and dreams on the one hand, and dreary old reality on the other. You're never in doubt as to which side the director is on; you could probably argue that Terry Gilliam's whole career has been building up to doing a film of Don Quixote.

I'm not sure this is quite as consistent or as impressive as some of Gilliam's other feats of cinematic legerdemain, but neither is it far from the standard of his best films, and there are moments which are as accomplished as anything he's done in the past. It feels like a minor miracle that The Man Who Killed Don Quixote has been finished at all; the fact it is as good as it is simply adds to the sense that it is something we should be grateful for. (It's just a shame that – true to form – the film is still entangled in legal difficulties affecting its release and distribution, which is presumably why it has barely appeared in British cinemas.) A heart-warming achievement for Terry Gilliam, anyway, and a treat for those of us who've loved his films for years.

Also This Week...

... Dark Waters, another piece of 'social impact entertainment' from Participant, producers of Just Mercy, Green Book, Spotlight, and many other films with a point to make. Todd Haynes' movie concerns a corporate lawyer (Mark Ruffalo) who stumbles upon a major scandal when he discovers a major chemical corporation has quietly been dumping toxic chemical sludge into the water supply of West Virginia. Based on a true story, naturally, and one which is obviously important and powerful.

That said, it's not necessarily terribly cinematic, and a key element of the story is the fact that the court cases and other investigations dragged on for years without very much happening. There's a faint sense of this about the film too. Well-directed by Haynes, with a strong lead performance from Ruffalo and good support from Anne Hathaway and Tim Robbins in particular – however, it's one of those films which it's easier to admire than it is to genuinely like or enjoy.

... the first half-hour of Peter Cattaneo's Military Wives, which sounds like a rather niche gentleman's magazine but turned out to be more akin to all those films about British people in adversity bonding through music and movement – Brassed Off, The Full Monty, Fisherman's Friends, you know the sort of thing. It actually showed glimmers of being less mawkish, pedestrian and trite than I'd anticipated, but then the lights in the cinema went out (and not in a good way) and the staff very apologetically showed everyone the exit while they waited for the power to come back on. But at least we got a free ticket each. To be continued.

Awix

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