When he was at film school the young director Toby shot a film with amateur actors about Don Quixote. Ten years later he's making commercials. That's not the career he expected. His latest commercial, being filmed in Spain with the backing of a Russian vodka company, needs someone to play the part of Don Quixote, so he looks up the actor who played Don Quixote in his student film, the shoemaker Javier. Times have changed. Javier is now demented and thinks he really is Don Quixote. He thinks Toby is his squire and demands that they ride out on adventures together.
As Toby accompanies Javier he doesn't realise that he's being drawn into Javier's madness.
With Terry Gilliam as director and screenwriter I expected a comedy, but the film is more of a tragedy. That's not bad in itself. What disappointed me about the film is that it wasn't always clear what was happening. Portions of the film seemed to be taking place in the 17th Century. Some scenes were called dreams. Others were play-acting by Javier's friends. Others were the filming of the advertisement. Added to this, we see the film through the eyes of Toby as he slowly slips into madness. It's possible that I didn't interpret all the scenes correctly, and I shan't properly understand them until I see the film again. But I don't want to watch it again. It didn't excite me enough.
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