A mentally disturbed man takes residence in a halfway house. His mind gradually slips back into the realm created by his illness, where he replays a key part of his childhood.
After getting into a serious car accident, a TV director discovers an underground sub-culture of scarred, omnisexual car-crash victims who use car accidents and the raw sexual energy they produce to try to rejuvenate his sex life with his wife.
A game designer on the run from assassins must play her latest virtual reality creation with a marketing trainee to determine if the game has been damaged.
After developing an addiction to the substance he uses to kill bugs, an exterminator accidentally kills his wife, and becomes involved in a secret government plot being orchestrated by giant bugs in a port town in North Africa.
A mild-mannered man becomes a local hero through an act of violence, which sets off repercussions that will shake his family to its very core in this action thriller.
When he acquires a different kind of show for his station, a sleazy cable-TV programmer begins to see his life and the future of media spin out of control in a terrifying new reality.
Riding across Manhattan in a stretch limo in order to get a haircut, a 28-year-old billionaire asset manager's day devolves into an odyssey with a cast of characters that start to tear his world apart.
Director:
David Cronenberg
Stars:
Robert Pattinson,
Juliette Binoche,
Sarah Gadon
Dennis Clegg is in his thirties and lives in a halfway house for the mentally ill in London. Dennis, nicknamed "Spider" by his mother has been institutionalized with acute schizophrenia for some 20 years. He has never truly recovered, however, and as the story progresses we vicariously experience his increasingly fragile grip on reality.Written by
Erwin van Moll <max404@hotmail.com>
I was lucky enough to see a screening of this in Queens, where David Cronenberg spoke about the film afterwards. He may be the most intelligent filmmaker working today. This is such an incredibly complex film, with so many levels of interpretations and ambiguity, which most great films offer an audience. The acting is first-rate and Oscar-worthy in a literal sense, not a bulls*** Hollywood sense; the composition of the shots is beautiful; the story is flawless and engaging; the production design is perfect - I could go on, but you get the picture. What's unfortunate is so many critics are discussing this film as one about schizophrenia, which it really isn't, nor was it meant to be. As it turns out, it is an excellent representation of the schizophrenic experience. But Cronenberg intended it to be representational of the human condition, with all its mysteries, uncertainties and existential anxieties. What was never an uncertainty, however, is Cronenberg's skillful mastery of delivering genius.
76 of 101 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful to you?
| Report this
I was lucky enough to see a screening of this in Queens, where David Cronenberg spoke about the film afterwards. He may be the most intelligent filmmaker working today. This is such an incredibly complex film, with so many levels of interpretations and ambiguity, which most great films offer an audience. The acting is first-rate and Oscar-worthy in a literal sense, not a bulls*** Hollywood sense; the composition of the shots is beautiful; the story is flawless and engaging; the production design is perfect - I could go on, but you get the picture. What's unfortunate is so many critics are discussing this film as one about schizophrenia, which it really isn't, nor was it meant to be. As it turns out, it is an excellent representation of the schizophrenic experience. But Cronenberg intended it to be representational of the human condition, with all its mysteries, uncertainties and existential anxieties. What was never an uncertainty, however, is Cronenberg's skillful mastery of delivering genius.