A Scanner Darkly Review
by samseescinema (sammeriam AT comcast DOT net)July 20th, 2006
A Scanner Darkly
reviewed by Sam Osborn
rating: 3.5 out of 4
Director: Richard Linklater
Screenplay: Richard Linklater (based on the novel by Phillip K. Dick) Cast: Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson MPAA Classification: R (drug and sexual content, language and a brief violent image)
Richard Linklater's first foray with the animation technique rotoscopy was 1999's collection of philosophic parables, Waking Life. The animation technique, which uses DV video footage layered beneath animation, was used to lift Waking Life's ramblings onto whispery wings of the surreal. The film wasn't mind-blowing, as some of its cultish fans would believe, but its animation tricked us into thinking so. Now enter A Scanner Darkly, Linklater's second indulgence with rotoscopy. The film is, yes, an actual film, complete with characters, a plot, story arcs and everything. The point is, however, that A Scanner Darkly represents an example where a film benefits from rotoscopy without heavily relying on it. It's strong enough to stand on its own un-stylized two feet. But it'd be like a beautiful woman wearing rags: impressive to a point. Only when the beautiful woman goes out and treats herself to that snappy, new, rotoscopy-infused dress do we really get starry-eyed.
The story is essentially a lesson tale, bemoaning the plague of drug addiction through a fictional near-future drug called Substance D. The drug's effects are never explained, but they're consequences are indulgently underscored with trippy bouts of psychosis and hallucination that are sent high-flying by the fluid animation. The drug comes in the form of red pills and seems to have the symptoms of physical addiction that Heroin totes, forcing characters to use if they want survive in their everyday world, but, at the same time, forcing out windows of paranoid debilitation. Keanu Reeves plays Robert Arctor, an informant for the Orange County Police who dons a special full-body suit that relays dozens of images across its surface to hide Arctor's physical and vocal identity. They use him to track the undercover working's of those occupying his home, including Donna Hawthorne (Winona Ryder), James Barris (Robert Downey Jr.), Charles Freck (Rory Cochrane), Ernie Luckman (Woody Harrelson) and Arctor himself, as they only know that the suited informant is one of those living within Arctor's home. The story snags at this stage, lingering between the household characters' growing conspiratorial paranoia and Arctor's depressed, shadowy life as an informant. It refuses to progress and instead takes stabs at being another Linklater character study. This isn't what the preview trailers promised, granted, but Linklater knows how to make a film talk. I bet just one of Linklater's films has more dialogue than all of Michael Bay's films put together. He knows how to make dialogue work in any situation, even those involving conspiratorial, sci-fi drug addiction. And Arctor's narrative dialogue often sings in harmony with the symphonic score whaling on the soundtrack. Eventually, though, the tale moves on and continues with the plot-driven story it promised.
For all the abuse Keanu Reeves takes, he's proving himself to be a damned useful actor. Between The Lake House and A Scanner Darkly he's shown he can dominate the depressed, middle-aged man. Will Mr. Reeves be stapled to these character actor roles? Maybe, but if he can pull them all off like this, who cares? His co-stars help him along, especially Winona Ryder, whose been slowly making her way back from that image-exploding shoplifting incident from a couple years ago. She's still a fine and beautiful actress, even if she reminds us now of Kiera Knightley instead of good ole' Winona Ryder. Robert Downey Jr. also builds on his rebound effort with the slimeball creep role of James Barris, returning strongly from last year's brilliant buddy-cop farce Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
The drug addiction lesson avoids the preachy, moral-schlepping effect of, say, the racial teachings of Crash, probably because we're not meant to realize its intentions until the end. At the end credits, there's a sentimental post-script by Phillip K. Dick, dedicating the story to a list of friends crippled by the drug demon. But Dick's source material and Linklater's adaptation both do well to weave an otherwise dull morality schpeel into a fascinating, albeit sometimes stalling, tale of conspiracy, technology and paranoia. The film may think it's smarter than it actually is, hinting at a trace of Waking Life's pretension, but Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder make for compelling subjects in a mostly intelligent imagining of a grim but colorfully-imagined Dick-ian view of our future.
-www.samseescinema.com
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