The Man Who Killed Don Quixote

Based loosely on Miguel de Cervantes most famous Spanish novel, Don Quixote, Terry Gilliam’s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is both a literal and metaphorical search into insanity, infatuation and power. Despite its A-Team cast – Adam Driver, Jonathan Pryce, Stellan Skarsgård – the movie is a rather hysterical mess in both production and plot. A blatant mixture of romance, meta-references, melancholy and comedic one-liners, confusion during the roll of credits was truly an understatement for this masterpiece.  

Audience members are introduced to advertising executive, Toby (Driver) during the production of a commercial featuring the titular Don Quixote and squire, Sancho. Seeking inspiration to fuel his work, we learn – through a series of flashbacks – that Toby had directed a similar passion project as a film student 10 years prior. Filming live in a rural Spanish village, the younger Toby attempts to replicate an authentic experience by hiring locals such as: Javier, an old cobbler as Don Quixote, and Angelica, the daughter of the local café owner, as a beautiful unnamed girl.  

However, when Toby attempts to revisit the small village back in the present, he learns that many things have changed and rippled since his original visit. Angelica has moved away to follow her dreams of stardom but fell into the escort world, while Javier was driven mildly insane, believing that he is, once and for all, the true Don Quixote.

This film confused me. Despite the astounding concoction of genre’s and stylistic choices, the first hour dragged due to its lack of value to the plot. There seemed to be a distinct lack of journey or character development in mind for the initial half of the film, and I found myself constantly drifting outside its pull. There are definitely parts that piqued my interest, but those ended up utterly overshadowed by the movie’s lack of coordination.

Small additions of meta-writing provoked some frustrations. In various scenes, Driver would break the fourth-wall, which only positioned itself as a poor component for the insipidly built story, and felt as if they were trying to pull as many Avant-garde rudiments as possible into the writing.

But it’s not all Gilliam’s fault in this situation, with The Man Who Killed Don Quixote being cited as “one of the most troubled productions in the history of cinema” by Indiewire. Here are the (condensed) reasons why: After reading the book back in 1989, Gilliam loved its story and wanted to adapt a film based around its main character. However after multiple setbacks – low budgets, damaged sets, technical issues, and cast injuries – the film was forced into cancellation on each occasion. It wasn’t until 2016, after many decades of cultivation, that Gilliam finally manages to finalise the film and attempts to premiere it. This was that film.

So what’s the final truth? The truth is that The Man Who Killed Don Quixote falls victim to scrappy ideas and messy, bludgeoned fingers. Unfortunately, Gilliam may have pondered for one decade too long on this concept. While there are some lovely scenes and bits of passionate writing that I enjoyed experiencing, these shots were all ruined by its completely lacklustre foundation. 132 minutes is 100 minutes too long, and would probably do viewers a favour to cull itself down. Adam Driver is (as always) an amazing actor, but no one could have saved this from what it was going to be.

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote can ultimately be summed up with the following three words: clumsy, awkward and frustrating.

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote
In cinemas now
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