Redemption
Perhaps the most important theme in the film is redemption. Jack seeks redemption for the shooting he feels he caused, and Parry seeks redemption from the memory of that shooting. Together, they try and help each other move through their respective traumas and feel redeemed. The promise of redemption follows the form of a quest to find the Holy Grail. Parry wants it in the beginning, and then later in the film, Jack wants to find it, hoping it will be the thing that will restore Parry to his former self. Jack's act redeems him in that it helps Parry move past his trauma and finally move on with his life. It also helps Jack integrate his desire for success in radio with his more compassionate and emotionally-honest side. Thus, he is redeemed in Anne's eyes as well, when he returns to the video store and tells her he loves her.
Mental Health Issues
Both of the main characters in the movie suffer from mental health issues, as does the man who telephones the radio show and ends up shooting up the restaurant. Mental health problems are at the center of the film, in different forms. After the incident at the restaurant, Jack feels responsible and slinks into a deep depression, which he self soothes through excessive drinking. Early on in the film, he almost attempts suicide, but doesn't end up doing it. Parry is also depressive, but his post-traumatic suffering crops up in a more avoidant way. Rather than become depressive or addictive, he suffers from catatonia, completely shutting down. When he awoke from his initial catatonia, Parry adopted an entirely separate personality and becomes delusional. He also suffers from debilitating panic attacks and hallucinations. Both Jack and Parry must move through their mental illness in order to find peace and happiness in their lives. By confronting their feelings (with the help of a little magical thinking) they are able to mend some of their psychic wounds.
Violence
Violence is a recurring theme in The Fisher King, in spite of the film's general whimsy and many comic elements. In the beginning, Jack's brisk and violent approach to advice seems to ignite the latent violent impulse in one of his callers, who promptly shoots up a restaurant. Later, when Jack is a depressive, he goes to jump into the East River, but is interrupted by two violent teenagers who want to kill him themselves, pouring lighter fluid on him and planning to set him on fire. Later, we learn that Parry's wife was one of Edwin's victims in the shooting, and in a particularly grotesque flashback, we see her murder in graphic detail. She is shot in the head and her blood splatters on Parry's face. Then, after Parry has his post-traumatic flashback, he is beaten up by the same hoodlums who tried to kill Jack in the beginning. Violence is a horrific reality of life throughout the film, lurking around nearly every dark corner. The film shows the ways that violence causes a great deal of pain and needless suffering.
Love
Another major theme in the movie is love. The film shows how having love, losing it, and wanting it are the driving forces behind each of the characters' actions. For example, the man who calls into the radio show has been rejected in love and he channels this rejection into violence, a rather dramatic response to a deprivation of love. This in turn robs Parry of the love of his life, his wife. He is forever changed by his traumatic experience and becomes incapacitated when it comes to asking another woman out. It is only with Jack and Anne's help that Parry is able to tell the woman of his dreams, Lydia, how he really feels. Jack and Anne also struggle to express their love for one another. Jack rejects the notion of being in love, and cannot even say that he loves Anne, in spite of their cohabitation and commitment. By the end of the movie, having come out the other side of his harrowing personal journey, Jack is able to tell Anne he loves her.
Random Events Connecting People
The movie demonstrates how seemingly-random actions and events fall like dominoes and affect people who are otherwise unconnected. A woman rejects a man who likes her. He calls into a radio show where Jack, the shock jock dismisses him. Then the man shoots people in a restaurant, one of whom is the wife of a man who will come to dramatically affect Jack's life three years later. At one point, Jack complains to Anne that he feels like a "magnet for shit," that he attracts negative energy and events into his life. By the end of the film, he learns that this attraction, these coincidences and connections, are actually gifts from the universe, lessons rather than punishments.
Magic
The theme of magic is closely aligned with the theme of mental illness in The Fisher King. As a way of living in the world after suffering such a huge trauma, Parry—previouslty Henry—disassociates and believes himself to be a medieval knight on a quest to retrieve a Holy Grail. Once a medieval history teacher, he transports himself into his studies, living under the delusion that he inhabits a different time. As a result, the landscape of Manhattan becomes a kind of fairy tale, a Chaucerian playground. Central Park becomes a forest, a homeless camp becomes a small peasant village, an old armory and luxury apartment becomes a castle. Thus, the film shows the ways that humans protect themselves from harm and pain from creating fantasies for themselves. The "Red Knight" of Parry's imagination, so fully realized in Terry Gilliam's visual world, is a concrete manifestation of Parry's anxiety and post-traumatic feeling. The knight represents his memory of his ex-wife's death, and his inability to confront that feeling. While fantasy is part of what so haunts Parry in his life, it is also what saves him, as represented in the phony "Holy Grail" that revives him from his catatonia once and for all, and allows him to access his feelings about his wife's death.
Compassion
At the start of the film, Jack is not a compassionate person, and has a brusque and glib attitude towards everyone. Indeed, this is part of his appeal as a shock jock, one of the job requirements for this role is that he remain as detached and glib as possible. This affects his personal life as well, and we see him dismissing a homeless beggar and being rude to his girlfriend. Later, Parry and his band of homeless associates help teach Parry how to be more compassionate. He begins to see the undesirables of society with greater empathy, and learns that everyone has a story, and no one is better than anyone else.
