{"id":4089,"date":"2014-03-04T05:25:12","date_gmt":"2014-03-04T04:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/?p=4089"},"modified":"2014-07-15T09:14:49","modified_gmt":"2014-07-15T08:14:49","slug":"the-zero-theorem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/2014\/03\/04\/the-zero-theorem\/","title":{"rendered":"The Zero Theorem"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The Zero Theorem<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

\nFormat:<\/B> Cinema

\nRelease date:<\/B> 14 March 2014

\nDistributor:<\/B> Sony Pictures Releasing

\nDirector:<\/B> Terry Gilliam

\nWriter:<\/B> Pat Rushin

\nCast:<\/B> Christoph Waltz, Melani\u00e9 Thierry, David Thewlis, Tilda Swinton

\nUK, Romania 2013

\n107 mins\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Christolph Waltz plays Qohen Leth, a black-clad man in a day-glo world \u2013 a loud, irritating future of intrusive technology and automated intimacy. Not that he wants intimacy. He just wants to be left alone at the fire-damaged church he calls home, where he is hoping to receive a phone call that will explain his existence. After a strange encounter with the mysterious Management (Matt Damon) at a party held by his boss (David Thewlis), he is granted his wish to work from home, as long as he works on a hush-hush project, an attempt to assemble a computer model of an insanely complex equation. He makes better progress than most in a task that has driven others to despair, but still begins to lose his mind under the pressure. A therapy programme (Tilda Swinton) proves unhelpful, so sexy Melanie Thierry, as a kind of virtual call girl, and a teenage wizkid (Lucas Hedges), are brought in to keep him working, turning his ordered and isolated life upside down in the process.<\/p>\n

The Zero Theorem<\/I> is released in the UK on DVD and Blu-ray on 21 July 2014<\/a>.<\/div>\n

Terry Gilliam\u2019s latest is restless in its own skin, feeling like a hugely absurdist science-fiction satire trying to fight its way out of a five-hander play, or an intimate study of modern madness lost in an overactive hyperkinetic playground. The Zero Theorem<\/I> takes you to the edge of a black hole, and the beach of a tropical island at permanent sunset, but still feels claustrophobic. Where the likes of Minority Report<\/I> are thematically dystopian, but fetishise the gleaming technology, Gilliam has a cartoonist\u2019s eye for bullshit: the street advertisements in his<\/I> lousy future address passers-by as the wrong sex, the pizzas sing annoying ditties, and digital communications are a great new way to not listen to each other. As you would expect from this director, the environmental detailing, the sheer visual exuberance, is something to behold. I heard ripples of delight spread around me at the screening from some shots, but this is, essentially, a beautiful boat without a goddamn motor. The earlier, kandy-koloured-Kafka scenes evoke a sense of stress and alienation many people in 2013 will be familiar with, but for the most part Leth\u2019s problems, his goals and desires, are just too abstract and peculiar for easy identification (especially when he\u2019s determinedly throwing off the advances of Thierry). Elements of the OTT visual dynamic obscure the storytelling. Forward momentum drops away, and the suspicion begins to grow that nobody knows where this is going or how to satisfactorily end it. It\u2019s a film with many incidental pleasures, but little purpose. A downbeat, pretty, befuddled mess. <\/p>\n

Mark Stafford<\/I><\/B><\/p>\n

This review was first published as part of our LFF 2013<\/a> coverage.<\/div>\n

Watch the trailer:<\/B><\/p>\n