Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life Asks Its Own Question and Never Answers It

Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life is a sketch comedy film that refuses to answer its own title. Instead, it answers with jokes about birth, death, war, sex and the absurdity of existence itself. It is the final feature film to star all six Python members before the death of Graham Chapman in 1989, and it plays like a farewell that never quite says it. The film is a loose series of vignettes, each one a small disaster in its own right, held together by a framing device that asks the question “What is the meaning of life?” and never stops asking.

Trailer, via Universal Pictures.

The Sketch Format

Unlike Holy Grail and Life of Brian, which told single, more-or-less coherent stories, The Meaning of Life returns to the sketch format of the troupe’s original television series. That means no through-line, no protagonist, no arc. What you get instead is a series of comic sketches about the various stages of life, loosely structured around the idea of the human condition. The result is a film that feels less like a movie and more like a live show captured on film, with the audience in the room as part of the act.

The opening sketch, “The Miracle of Birth,” sets the tone immediately. Maternity doctors ignore a woman in labour while trying to impress the hospital’s administrator. It is a joke about bureaucracy, but it is also a joke about the fragility of life itself. The women in the delivery room are screaming, and the doctors are too busy arguing about their careers to notice.

From Birth to Death

The film moves through the stages of life with a relentless pace. “Growth and Learning” follows a class of boys who learn school etiquette before partaking in a sex education lesson that involves watching their teacher have sex with his wife. One boy laughs and is forced into a violent rugby match pitting pupils against the school masters as punishment. It is a dark comedy about the hypocrisy of education, and it lands because the stakes are real: the boys are being punished for something that is not their fault.

“Fighting Each Other” is the longest sequence, and it is also the most brutal. Three scenes concern the British military. During the Battle of the Somme in World War I, a British officer tries to rally his men during an attack, but they instead present him with going-away gifts. A modern army RSM bullies his soldiers to say what they would rather be doing than marching drills, then dismisses each in turn. In 1879 during the Anglo-Zulu War during the Battle of Rorke’s Drift, a soldier finds his leg has been bitten off. Suspecting a tiger, the soldiers hunt for it and find two men in a tiger costume.

These sketches are not gentle. They are not funny in the way that a joke about a fish is funny. They are funny in the way that a punch to the gut is funny. The film knows that war is terrible, and it makes jokes about it anyway. That is the point.

The Middle of the Film

The hostess introduces “The Middle of the Film,” during which bizarre characters challenge the audience in a segment called “Find the Fish.” This is the weirdest stretch of the film, and it is also the most self-aware. The characters are not really characters. They are the audience, dressed up as strange creatures. The fish, who started the film by questioning the meaning of life, have become the joke.

Then comes “Middle Age,” where an American couple visits a Hawaiian restaurant with a medieval torture theme, and the waiter offers a conversation about philosophy. The fish watch this from the tank, and the film loops back to where it began. The meaning of life is not found in the middle of the film. It is found in the questions themselves.

The Final Stretch

The film ends with a sequence about death, and it is as bleak as anything else in the movie. A man named Mr. Creosote vomits until he dies. It is a joke about excess, but it is also a joke about the limits of the body. The film does not offer comfort. It offers only the truth, and the truth is that we are all going to die.

The Numbers

• Runtime: 107 minutes
• Budget: $9 million
• Gross: almost $43 million
• Won the Grand Prix at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival

Cast and Credits

The film is not perfect. Some sketches run long, and the middle stretch drags. But the best sketches are among the best the troupe ever produced. The battle scene in the Somme is a masterpiece of absurdist horror. The sex education lesson is a sharp commentary on the hypocrisy of schools. The vomiting scene is a grim reminder of the limits of the body.

The Meaning of Life is a flawed masterpiece. It is a film that asks a question it cannot answer, and it is all the better for it. It is a film that is willing to be uncomfortable, and that is rare. It is a film that deserves its reputation as a cult classic, and it deserves to be seen again.

comedy review · cult classic · Monty Python · Sketch Comedy · The Meaning of Life