Baird's
direction is of a similarly heedless, knockabout nature, filching from other filmmakers with magpie abandon: Kubrick
in the sweaty, distortive use of closeup, Fassbinder
in an arch,
unexpectedly resolved strain of Germanic camp, and Gilliam
in Robertson's fantasy sessions with swollen -
headed shrink Jim Broadbent — perhaps the film's least successful flight of fancy.