A Scanner Darkly

The film did not set me on fire,but it did try to be faithful to the novel. If it inspires the viewer to read the book or the work/s of P.K.Dick then it has done its job. The animation format used had no influence on my viewing pleasure,it was neither good nor bad,it did not distract me from the theme of the movie. Keanu Reeves I thought was decent in the role of Bob,whether this is due to the colouring effect or not is debatable. Seriously though,Mr Reeves has a limited appeal as an actor to me,but I actually thought he did a good job. I read the book 20 some years ago and enjoyed it immensely,as always the film can never convey the entire book,but I was finally pleased it made it to film in a semi faithful way.

Like most works by the late Phillip K. Dick, "A Scanner Darkly" provides stinging social commentary embedded in a deeply disturbing vision of a dystopian future. Based on some of his own experiences with drug addiction and rehabilitation, Dick's 1977 novel tells the complex tale of a man who, through an illicit drug he is taking, becomes a split personality, with one half of him being an addict and the other half being a narc - but with neither half aware of the other half's existence. If that sounds like a bit of a "head trip," that is clearly Dick's intent here, for what better way to capture the dreamlike and hallucinatory nature of psychedelic, mind-altering drugs? And what better way for a filmmaker to reproduce that effect on film than through the technique known as "rotoscoping," in which live actors are filmed doing their scenes, then later drawn over and turned into seamlessly flowing animation? This is the style made famous in the 1980's with the A-Ha video "Take on Me" and Linklater's own full length feature in the '90's, "Waking Life." In the case of "A Scanner Darkly," especially, its use results in a perfect marriage of form and content.

In this prescient tale set in the "near future," Keanu Reeves plays the undercover cop, Agent Fred, who, under the pseudonym Bob Arctor, is sent to live in a home with several known drug addicts: Barris, played by Robert Downey Jr. and Luckman, played by Woody Harrelson. When Fred begins taking the newly fabricated drug known as "Substance D," which causes the two hemispheres of the brain to disconnect and go to war with one another, Fred/Arctor becomes essentially two distinctly separate persons, so that, in his capacity as an undercover agent, he is actually spying on himself without realizing it. Winona Ryder appears as Donna, the beautiful but sexually frigid coke addict who becomes Arctor's girlfriend.

"A Scanner Darkly" is an easy film for a viewer to get lost in, so it pays to know a little something about the story before heading into it. As a screenwriter, Linklater captures the woozy insubstantiality of the drug experience well enough but often at the expense of narrative consistency and coherence, especially for the uninitiated. I'm afraid lots of people may become frustrated and confused near the beginning and simply tune out. That would be a real shame because the movie turns into a darkly fascinating rumination on the effect drug use has on the mind, while at the same time raising the ethical issue of just how far the government should go in "sacrificing" innocent victims to achieve a desired, perhaps even laudable, end. At times the movie may seem to be playing both sides of the drug-war fence, yet the sophistication and complexity of Dick's vision keeps it from becoming either an anti-government screed or an anti-drug diatribe.

Some of the dialogue comes off as corny and over earnest, but much of it is incisive and darkly humorous, with Barris and Larkman, in particular, hitting delicious comic heights in their paranoid/delusional ravings and interchanges.

When someone on a trip starts to wig out, you take them someplace quiet and talk soothingly and assure them that everything's going to be OK. But as the tagline of this film makes clear, for these characters everything is most definitely NOT going to be OK.

For those who haven't read the book, it's important to know what you're getting into. PK Dick wrote this novel as a way of telling the story of how he and his friends in the early '70s damaged and destroyed themselves with drugs. He tells this story within the framework of a surreal science fiction thriller, but many of the scenes are straight from his own experiences with the unpleasant consequences of people using drugs and disintegrating mentally.

This film does an amazing job of capturing the feel and tone of the book as well as the paranoia, perceptual distortions, and chaos of hallucinogenic overindulgence. Add to that a story that only gradually emerges from the madness, but by the end brings in a lot of heavy ideas such as the existence of free will, whether ends justify means, etc. There is a sense of consequence to what happens in the film, a sense of despair at what has been lost. So this story of drug-addled losers becomes the story of the human struggle for identity and meaning.

I have a couple of minor quibbles regarding scenes from the book that only partially made the cut (no explanation for the significance of "If I'd known it was harmless I would have killed it myself, no little kid to explain how 6 and 3 gears means 18 speeds). Still, most adaptations of PK Dick stories take a few basic ideas and try to shape them into more conventional films that fit into established genres. Even when it works, such as with Blade Runner or Total Recall, it's not really PK Dick. Not so this film. This is PK in all his dark and perverse and deeply thoughtful glory.

Hollywood has tried so many times to capture the feel of Philip K. Dick terms of his style and writing. Films like Total Recall, Paycheck, Minority Report, all were playing to the lowest common denominator and really lost a lot of the feel that Dick conveys in his writing. Blade Runner came close, but it still missed the essential darkness that Dick brings to each and every one of his works.

Enter "A Scanner Darkly", aside from the Interpolative Rotoscoping that the film maker used to put the graphical images of this movie together and give it an amazing visual feel all its own, the vision and imagery conveyed by the film are as true to Dick's original as any movie has come. I left the theater feeling overwhelmed, touched, and changed, much the same way as when I'd finished the book. This is rare, and it is decidedly a beautiful thing.

It's seven years in the future. The country is struggling with 20% of the population addicted to a new drug Substance D. In Anaheim, Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves) is an undercover agent who wears a scramble suit which changes his appearance like a chameleon. The drug war is supported by private corporation New Path. Bob is himself addicted and starting to lose his mind.

This is an unique movie of an original style. The rotorscoping animation style is hypnotic. It's not for everybody. It can be maddening to watch as the madness of this world can infect the audience. It's a visually weird movie. It gets tiring to watch. It may be better as an animated short than a full-length feature. The talkative story can also wear out its welcome.