I am now going to attempt to review Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (1983).  If you are familiar with Python’s work, particularly this movie, you will know how tricky is such an endeavor.  There are a few obstacles, from a Catholic and critical perspective.  As for the former, while a title such as this lends itself to a discussion of Faith, of which there is plenty, the overall product is deeply flawed.  There are misunderstandings of Catholicism specifically, and Christianity more broadly, not to mention the gratuitous nature of some of the comedy.  As to the latter, which is related to the comedy, there is no plot.  What gave the group its fame was their variety show known as Monty Python’s Flying Circus (1969-1974).  Please read “variety” as “random.”  While some attempt at theming was made for each episode, it was usually a collection of skits with little relation to one another.  After all, they would occasionally have someone come into a scene and announce, “Now for something completely different. . . .”  That phrase well defines their career, and Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life holds true to that idea.

I have no idea to start with Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, and neither did they, apparently.  I say that because the opening sequence is titled The Crimson Permanent Assurance.  It is about a small accounting firm full of elderly workers who mutiny against their younger bosses, turn their building into a pirate ship, and sail around the world destroying all final centers in their path.  This ends when their vessel falls off the side of the Earth.  It also has no relation to the rest of the film, except when it comes in the middle of the movie and attempts to take over.  The proceedings are quickly stopped and the filmmakers apologize for the interruption.  From there, Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life loosely defines what is suggested in the title, organized around seven parts, each with a different skit.  To describe them all would be tedious and practically nonsensical.  Take “Part I: The Miracle of Birth,” which makes sense.  However, this is followed by a “Part II” to “Part I” specifying how this is viewed in the Third World.  I have a lot to say about that part, so I will save it for the next paragraph.  If you are thinking of this in terms of a sort of cinematic outline, then that naming convention for the divisions is arbitrarily changed when we get to “Part VI,” which has a “Part B” to it.  I suppose this one should be praised in that it is actually called “The Meaning of Life.”  Then again, that only comes after a school of fish in an aquarium complain that the movie has not yet addressed the eponymous topic.  At the same time, if you believe this means that it is getting somewhere, you are wrong.  During this sequence you get the fattest man ever arriving at a restaurant, puking every few seconds, eating every item on the menu, and then literally exploding after being fed a “wafer thin” mint but the head waiter (John Cleese).  As the gargantuan mess is being cleaned, Gaston (Eric Idle), takes the audience to show us the house in which he had been born.  Once there, he shares how his mother had told him to follow his dreams, which is one of a few attempts to give us a meaning life.  As sweet as the sequence is, he gets defensive after hearing his explanation out loud and assuming it is not good enough given that he is little more than a waiter.  If you watch the movie, you will further notice that there is some raunchiness to the movie, which is another reason while I will not be getting into detail.  The second half is not as bad, though there is a scene in which Arthur Jarrett (Graham Chapman), a criminal sentenced to death, is allowed to pick his means of execution.  On the surface, this does not sound too sexual, but his choice is to have a group of topless women chase him off the side of a cliff.  The only way you truly know that you have reached the end of the film is when we are actually shown those words in text form before the final credits.  I should add that this comes after the last part, which is “Death.”

Indeed, there is an afterlife in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life.  Actually, this Catholic was somewhat elated when people arriving in Heaven are told that it is Christmas every day.  This is not a bad description.  It is a shame that it is ruined when everyone from every skit to that point is in the audience, including the topless women, for a show featuring a Tony Bennett impersonator (Graham Chapman).  However, this is not the most egregious aspect of the film.  That dubious distinction goes to the aforementioned miracle of birth in the Third World section.  A father (Michael Palin) arrives home after losing his job at the factory.  Before walking in to greet his literal army of children and wife (Terry Jones), dad sees the stork drop another infant into his home.  It goes straight down into mom, out the birth canal, and onto the floor.  This could be chalked up as just another comedic bit until they explicitly say that they are a Catholic family.  Dad blames his over-reproductiveness on the Church.  Blame is perhaps the wrong word.  The main culprit in his eyes is the fact that the Church teaches that contraception is wrong, meaning he cannot wear a condom during intercourse.  It is correct that Catholicism deems contraception, including condoms, as impermissible.  The key is in the prefix “contra,” or “against.”  What one does in using such devices is prevent the possibility of life, which is supposed to be the goal of intercourse.  That is not to suggest that a married couple is forbidden for having sex for pleasurable reasons.  However, being open to new life is paramount.  Yet, the movie goes on to make a further joke of it, performing a musical number claiming that all sperm is sacred.  That is contrasted with the protestant couple living across the street who have no problem using condoms in the context of their marriage bed.  Later, there is a mock hymn where they sing about God not wanting to turn his wrath on them through the most cruel and unusual ways.  It is all meant to be irreverent and silly.  As a practicing Catholic and film critic, I worry that such moments cast a false light on what the Church actually preaches and teaches.  There are reasons for why She does what She does, and they are not as medieval and arbitrary as the wider culture might tell you.

And I am telling you, as a general rule, not to see Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life.  It does have moments of that great humor for which they are known, but they ratchet up the raunchiness in a number of places.  Watch other things they have done instead.