Paging ‘Doctor Parnassus’

Terry Gilliam’s long-delayed, beset-by-tragedy head trip finally lands in U.S. theaters Christmas day. Featuring the final—albeit incomplete—performance of the late Oscar-winner Heath Ledger, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is a traditional fable, not unlike Faust, about an ill-advised deal with the Devil set in modern day London.In exchange for immortality, Christopher Plumber’s Parnassus, who is a kind of traveling illusionist using a magic mirror to grant spectators visions of their deepest desires, be they for good or for ill, has promised Tom Wait’s scheming Mr. Nick his daughter Valentina when she turns 16. As her birthday approaches, Parnassus’ eclectic troupe meets Ledger’s Tony, a mysterious grifter who wants to help Valentina escape her dark fate, but who may have ulterior motives of his own. After Ledger’s death, Gilliam cast Ledger’s friends Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell as altered incarnations of Tony for the scenes that take place within the magic mirror in a fantasy world enlivened by Gilliam’s mind-bending Monty Python palette. Lily Cole and Verne Troyer co-star. Rated R.