Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr, Winona Ryder, Woody Harrelson, Rory Cochrane, Mitch Baker, Natasha Valdez, Mark Turner, Chamblee Ferguson, Angela Rawna, Eliza Stevens, Sarah Menchaca, Melody Chase, Leif Anders, Turk Pipkin, Alex Jones, Lisa Marie Newmyer, Ken Webster, Hugo Perez, Rommel Sulit, Dameon Clarke.
Watching a film adaptation of any Philip K. Dick story is likely to leave you scratching your head, pondering the meaning of existence and wondering if the directors have kept hold of their own sanity whilst working on a man’s work who was undoubtedly brilliant but whose words were riddled with the idea of a man searching for his own personal identity, even more so than any protagonist he wrote about in his novels or short stories.
Following on from the phenomenal Blade Runner (1982) and the lacklustre but special effects-ridden galore Total Recall (1990) (both films adapted from stories by Philip K. Dick titled Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and We Can Remember It For You Wholesale) and 2002’s Minority Report, came A Scanner Darkly in 2006 and for the first time since Blade Runner, it felt as if the premise, the layer upon layer of filming and story was exactly what the great American writer would have possibly imagined.
Directed by Richard Linklater, the film divided opinion and not because of the subject matter, which can be a little soft compared to the idea behind Blade Runner, but because of the imaginative use of the animation technique known as interpolated rotoscoping. Whatever the rights and wrongs of using such a technique, it cannot be dismissed easily out of hand and it adds an air of disturbing nightmare appeal in a way that to have added C.G.I. to the film would have left it cold and unfeeling. The use of rotoscoping added greatly to the psychological break-down and use of the drug Substance D in a world where America has lost the war on drugs. It also implies the dangers of a drug induced colouring right from the start in which Rory Cochrane is seen to be losing his mind and is scrubbing himself clean of the insects and aphids that are crawling all over him and his house. In many films the actor would have had this filmed in real life, the aphids crawling over his skin in a way that the British horror writer James Herbert could have written with greater effect. By using rotoscoping animation it can be seen as a nod to the imagination rather than displaying the real, the shock effect is somehow greatly enhanced as it seems ludicrous that the hallucinations would be these real creatures crawling all over Rory Chocrane’s character of Charles Freck’s hair and skin.
In a film that delves perhaps into the imagination of Philip K. Dick unlike any other, save for Blade Runner, A Scanner Darkly combines the talent of some of the most popular and indeed incredible actors available and who carry off the loss of identity superbly. Chief amongst these are Keanu Reeves who had made his name an almost interstellar commodity during the Matrix trilogy, the outstanding Robert Downey Jr. as James Barris and Winona Ryder as seemingly cocaine addicted Donna Hawthorne. All three actors absorbed the role thrust upon them and gave the right amount of paranoia and increasing suspicion for which the role demanded. Certainly Robert Downey Jr. gives the type of performance that made him one of the finest film actors in American history and up there with his pre-Sherlock Holmes and Iron Man performances in films such Chaplin, The Singing Detective and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.
The whole film has the disguised feel of comic book mixed with the very real unnerving damage imposed on real life caused by the absolute dangers of long term drug addiction – the feeling of displacement is framed throughout and is rhythmic and mesmerising. In other films that have used comic books as their staple texture, films such as the excellent Sin City or Watchmen, it is always underlined that the violence is graphic novel, it is easy to visualise the film as nothing more than an excellent piece of explicit comic art. A Scanner Darkly is exactly that, dark, it is far too easy to imagine yourself going down this dim road to addiction and seeing your identity eroded away as you lose yourself in the pain of drugs.
The final moment of the film is perhaps the most powerful. With just a black background the words of the author in an abridged form in which he lists the names of those that lost the battle in one way or another to drugs. Whether through brain damage, psychosis or death, nobody wins in this terrible battle, something the author knew only too well.
A Scanner Darkly might not have the cross generation appeal or longevity of Blade Runner but Director Richard Linklater gave this adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s work the respect and reverence it deserves. A classic short story made into a must see film, one of the finer adaptations of a great man’s work.
Ian D. Hall