The Meaning of Life (1983)

The Meaning of Life (1983)

Directed by: Terry Jones

Starring: John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin

The fourth and final Monty Python film goes back more to their roots with a less organized series of skits vaguely tied together by the vague idea of the meaning of life. I’ll spoil the ending for you: The meaning of life is that people aren’t wearing enough hats. Okay, that’s not it, but that’s what I like to think is the moral.

The Pythons take us through the stages of life, from birth to middle age to live organ transplants to death, and they keep a-singing along the way. Yes, Meaning of Life is the most musical of all the Python films, featuring no fewer than four musical numbers (and possibly more, depending on how you count it), all the better to sell records with. Meaning of Life, to me, really seems to try way too hard on this front. I’m not a fan of musicals, and though I enjoyed “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” from Life of Brian, there isn’t a single song in this film that seems appropriate (not politically correct appropriateness, artistic or pacing-based appropriateness). I remember the first time I saw this and after the big “Every Sperm is Sacred” number, I thought, “oh good, there goes the musical number for the movie.” Oh, if only.

Not to say that Meaning of Life isn’t funny. It’s a pretty damn funny movie. The worst thing it suffers from is being made by Monty Python, which automatically jacks your expectations as high as they can go. These guys were called the Beatles of comedy, for god’s sake, you expect something five or ten times better than anything else out of them. Ultimately, that’s what drives this film down. I guarantee you, if a fledgling comedy team had come out with Meaning of Life instead, it would’ve been hailed as amazing and hilarious instead of the worst Monty Python movie. Ah well, you can’t win them all.

However, it would be shameful for me to review this movie without also mentioning The Crimson Permanent Assurance, the short film that precedes Meaning of Life (and attacks it halfway through for the funniest moment in the film), directed by Terry Gilliam. The Crimson Permanent Assurance is amazing. Gilliam managed to take as long filming the 15 minute long short as the rest of the crew took to film the rest of the movie, which would become a trademark of Gilliam’s style. Along with him spending half the budget of the movie on it. To be perfectly honest, the only reason I watch Meaning of Life anymore is to see Crimson Permanent Assurance.