"That's a nice-a donut."

Friday, August 18, 2006


A Scanner Darkly (2006)

There have been a number of movies created from stories written by late science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick. Some have been good such as Blade Runner, Total Recall, and Minority Report, and others such as Screamers or Paycheck have been rather bad. But one notable feature of most of them is that they did not adequately depict what was written by Dick, as the sometimes strange or surreal aspects of his stories has made them difficult to adapt directly for the big screen. But they have always been fun and intriguing stories, and perhaps this is why Hollywood keeps going back to the Dick library for more ideas.

With A Scanner Darkly, director Richard Linklater - someone who is certainly not afraid to crossover into many different genres of film - boldly took Dick's story and somehow managed to both make it faithful to the original story and make it his own. The result is a fascinating, engrossing and highly impressive work that may very well end up being the best film released in 2006.

Before diving into details on the plot, it is important to note that the movie is animated. But not the sort of animation you might normally think of. Linklater went back to his groundbreaking rotoscoping animation technique that he first employed in the seldom seen, good but flawed, Waking Life. With rotoscoping, everything was filmed in live action and then traced over and redrawn into by animators. ...And I couldn't imagine the film being done any other way - the animation is beautiful. Everything appears so authentic, yet still dreamlike as in a magnificent watercolor painting. It thoroughly captures the essence and lucidity (or lack thereof it) of the complex story.

Keanu Reeves is Bob Arctor, an undercover police officer who works on tracking drug users, specifically of the very addictive Substance D, with a larger goal of taking down a high-level drug dealer. But to accomplish this he sometimes wears a "scramble suit" as codename Fred, a headspinning costume that completely hides the identity of the wearer by constantly changing into the clothing and faces of millions of different people. It also obscures his voice. The effect is that someone would have no idea who is behind the scramble suit, even the person's age, race, or gender, including Bob's boss who also wears one when they meet.

Meanwhile, Arctor is living with several other users of the illicit drug including James Barris (Robert Downey Jr.), Charles Freck (Rory Cochrane, who you'll recognize as the main stoner in Linklater's first real critical hit Dazed and Confused), and Ernie Luckman (Woody Harrelson). He is also dating Donna (Winona Ryder), who is the drug dealer. Arctor is so undercover that he begins to become addicted to the drug himself. But to make matters even more trippy, "Fred" is tasked with watching Arctor - he is spying on himself. Eventually Arctor's hectic life begins to unravel and things go quickly downhill for him, personally and professionally.

Given that it is a very talky, conversational picture, with pretty much no "action" to speak of, it was very crucial for it to be well-paced. And it is, helped no doubt by the animation but also by the incredible acting of the lead characters. Downey Jr. was born to play the role of Barris; it's not quite scene-stealing because everyone else is amazingly just as good, but he completely brings himself into it, undoubtedly calling upon his own life experiences, to create a very memorable film character filled with intense paranoia, wisdom, and humor. Of course, Harrelson and Cochrane are clearly very good at playing stoners, and Ryder is gives a fine comeback, noteworthy for it being her first real performance since her infamous shoplifting bust some five years ago. Even Reeves, often lambasted for being too stone-faced and affectless in his movies, seems to be just right. Certainly his work in the Matrix films, with all the pseudo-psycho-philosophical babble has paid off.

Being an adaptation of a Dick story, there are admittedly several aspects to the story that are somewhat hard to follow and don't quite make sense at first. For instance, after seeing it, one of my first thoughts was trying to remember what the title even meant. But the movie is constructed in such a way that the main plot is never hard to follow. It's certainly an ambiguous ending, but in a good way, and the abstract nature of the metaphors and other elements will provide food for thought long after you've seen it.

The Verdict: A-.

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