The Zero Theorem (2013) on Netflix
Qohen Leth, who refers to himself in the plural, awaits a phone call he thinks will explain his life. Management hands him the Zero Theorem, a formula about whether life holds meaning.
- Netflix2.8/5
- IMDb6.0/1052,093 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes48%
Trailer
Plot summary
Qohen Leth crunches entities for the ontological research division of Mancom, a large company, and refers to himself in the plural. He lives alone in a fire-damaged church and dislikes the crowded, polluted streets and the noisy office, because he fears missing a call he has waited years for. He asks for disability leave or permission to work at home; three company doctors find him physically healthy but send him to sessions with the AI therapist Dr. Shrink-Rom. At a party given by his supervisor Joby, Qohen asks Management for that permission. Management hands him a special project instead: the Zero Theorem, a formula said to exhaust or kill whoever tries to solve it.
Cast
- Margarita Doyleas Mancom Computerised Lips
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Zero Theorem (2013)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Pat Rushin, a creative writing professor at the University of Central Florida, wrote the 145-page first draft in ten days with, by his own account, no idea what he was doing. He then borrowed screenwriting books and scripts from the university library to learn the form, Terry Gilliam's Brazil among them.
- Three other stars were attached to Qohen Leth before Christoph Waltz. Producer Richard D. Zanuck signed Ewan McGregor, who dropped out; a version with Billy Bob Thornton, Jessica Biel and Al Pacino collapsed when Gilliam left to finish The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, which the death of Heath Ledger had put behind schedule.
- The script only required Qohen to be bald, but Terry Gilliam insisted that Christoph Waltz shave his eyebrows as well, both to challenge the actor and to make the character look nothing like the roles Waltz had played before.
- Gilliam resisted pressure to cast an established American actress as Bainsley, picking the little-seen Melanie Thierry because he wanted a real body rather than a manufactured one, and told her to think of the part as Marilyn Monroe and Judy Holliday combined. Jessica Biel had been attached earlier.
- Still smarting over how his 2005 film Tideland had been reframed for home video, Gilliam shot in the Maxivision format at 1.85:1 so that every viewer anywhere would see exactly the framing he intended. He also liked the rounded frame corners it left, which recalled 1920s projection.
- Gilliam gave production designer Dave Warren the entire look of the film in one e-mailed equation: "Neo Rauch + Ukulele Ike = The Zero Theorem".
- Gilliam said the whole film took one year from start to finish, against the three years most of his movies need. Shooting in Bucharest on limited funds meant flying people in for a single day and out again, which left him, in his word, knackered.
