I can't say why my 12 year old mind gravitated towards odd movies, I don't even remember the first time I saw the Fisher King, I think it was a thing that it didn't matter how old you were, if Robin Williams was in a movie, you got to watch it because we all knew he was a funny bastard. It was one of my parrot movies (I've recently learnt that I'm probably autistic and have a form of echolalia where you repeat heard phrases, only I'm rather good at accent mimicry). I don't think I cried at it at all until I was older. I sort of got the humor but didn't, I liked Amanda Plummer's character and probably identified with her. My mind was capable of comprehending cleverness but I needed to grow up to really appreciate these movies.
Something about the ending tears me up the way a good happy ending should. Gilliam's talent for putting us in the head of someone frenetic and appreciating the madness for what it is. He's quite underrated for how stylised and smart his films are, and he injected a whimsy into the tale that only someone like Williams could pull off, mainly for the fact it was easy to get him to do outlandish shit like jump around Central Park naked. I like Bridges' as Jack, how he adopts the madness and they balance each other out in the end, nobody needed curing, not in that sense. We're stuck in claustrophobic places off-kilter with Dutch angles. I think the hospital scene was a good precursor to 12 Monkeys. The dance in Grand Central Station is pure magic, I was very in love with mature yet fanciful romances at that age, Untamed Heart being my other go-to, that's also full of flaws a younger millennial wouldn't abide. (Do you romanticise someone sneaking into your house, or the fact they're a tad too childlike). I would put a trigger warning on this in terms of depiction of mental illness/degradation etc. It affected me more later, you can't rely on a 90's movie to give you the best representations of any affected group or minority, I'm sorry. This one isn't entirely offensive. (I realised the scene Anne is all over Jack despite him not being in the mood might bug people too).
The other William's movie I loved too much was Dead Poet's Society, another one that really kicks you in the gut in the end. I studied that at school, my English teacher actually berating the entire class for their shitty essays on it when we'd been studying it. (I think he ate his words when he realised he'd forgotten to assign a year long project we were supposed to do very close to the end of the year), I wish I'd kept my essay as apparently it was the only good one, a nearby student complaining that he'd just said they'd all fucked up so why did I get a good grade. He said because I deserved it. Duh.
Everyone in the Fisher King is wonderful, it's fucking criminal Mercedes Rueh's career didn't take off after she won the Oscar. She's the perfect cheese to Plummer's chalk the way they bond over drinks and horror stories of their mothers. She's written so well and uniquely, she's really screwed over by Jack for all her patience and compassion she gives him only to have him basically abandon her once he's fine. Anne's prince falls into a coma like Parry. It's poetic for something that was advertised as more of a romantic comedy. It's a journey of one man finding his humanity, he has to finish Parry's quest or lose his own redemption.
I don't think Bridges and Williams could ever be replaced, in these roles or any others they've played. Younger kids won't get to experience how it was growing up with an actor like Robin Williams being such a respected household name despite him being a prolific coke addict, he was still the most human actor when we lost him, something special disappeared from the world, it also gave us in the mental illness community a swift reminder how close we skirt that edge without appreciating we could lose anyone at any moment. Williams having such a heartfelt sincerity in this film, you couldn't replicate it.
But movies kind of created my love language (or rather my only fucking language) it seemed to be the only way I could cope with running out of shit to say. So, if I ever quote the Simpsons around you, it's because I like you and I want to be your friend.
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