HOLLYWOOD – In conjunction with what would have been Miguel de Cervantes’ 464th birthday, Tom Cruise has scheduled a press conference for this afternoon. Sources close to Mr. Cruise claim he will announce that work will begin soon on a major project—turning Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote into an action movie.
“Tom really digs the parallels between Don Quixote’s life and his,” said the source, “and reading between those parallels, he sees this new movie as a symbolic way of bringing the message of Scientology to a wider audience.”
Don Quixote, the protagonist of Cervantes’ novel, is a quasi-retired country gentleman approaching fifty. He lives with his niece (Katie Holmes) and a fat housekeeper (Kirstie Alley). An ordinary little man, Don Quixote is characterized by a braying laugh and a fetish for escapist literature, especially books about chivalry.
These books have a shattering effect on Don Quixote because he believes they are literally true, much as Mr. Cruise believes in the literal truth of Scientology. Therefore, Don Quixote decides to dress up as a knight-errant and to go off in search of adventure. He begins by wearing an old suit of armor every place he goes and insisting that everyone address him as “Don Quixote de la Mancha,” though his real name is Alonso Quixano.
Because knights are required to be in love with a virginal lass, Don Quixote designates a neighboring farm girl (Scarlett Johansson) as his true love, renaming her Dulcinea del Tobasco.
Early one morning Don Quixote sets out on his quest. By noon he reaches the town square. After climbing down from his horse with some difficulty, Don Quixote mounts the only bench in the town square and declares his love for Dulcinea del Tobasco.
This does not sit well with several townspeople because now they have no place to eat their tapas. They set upon Don Quixote, leaving him dented and dazed in the town square. Eventually at dusk a neighbor named Pedro Crepusculo (John Travolta) takes Don Quixote home.
Don Quixote’s niece and housekeeper place him under house arrest, but he escapes with the help of another neighbor Sancho Panza (Will Smith). Don Quixote rewards Sancho Panza by making him a squire, giving him a mule, and promising him the governorship of a forty-acre parcel in the sky.
Although the adventures of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza are too numerous to catalog here, their first adventure is still their signature dish—Don Quixote’s attack on windmills that he believes are ferocious giants from the planet Remulon.
During their travels Don and Sancho meet innkeepers, prostitutes, soldiers, priests, escaped convicts, jugglers, and others. These routine encounters, seen through the lens of Don Quixote’s fascination with chivalry, turn into challenging quests; but Don Quixote’s tendencies to interrupt people when they talk and to tell them how they should conduct their lives, lead to many humiliations. Finally, Sancho Panza convinces Don Quixote to return to his home village while he still can.
When Mr. Cruise holds his press conference today, he is expected to announce that he will incorporate a new ending in his retelling of Don Quixote. In the original the Don wakes up one day and realizes that his adventures were all delusions, and he renounces his belief in chivalry. Don’t expect Tom Cruise to let that ending stand.
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