A Scanner Darkly
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Movie Reviews of A Scanner Darkly
Movie Review: Great movie!
Summary: 5 Stars
This was a great movie. It had a specific message, and it really made me think and consider some of the things that go on in our world. I would definitely recommend it.Movie Review: Dumbfounded
Summary: 5 Stars
Original, beautiful and tragic.
The soundtrack and audio mix is the best I've ever heard.
Movie Review: Very interesting film...
Summary: 5 Stars
...sticks pretty close to the book, but still sounds liike it was written for today.Movie Review: Great adaptation, though it goes a bit fast.
Summary: 4 Stars
This is the best existing Dick adaptation (yes, better than that other one), largely because it's very faithful to the original. This alone is a brave move in our day, when films that are "based on" books attempt to "improve" the story by adding extra car chases and happy endings. The few liberties that A Scanner Darkly does take are minor and probably necessary to present Dick's sprawling story as a film. For example, the characters of Jerry Fabin and Charles Freck are merged together into one shaggy, doughy guy, which is pretty much exactly how Jerry comes across in the book. More importantly, the dark ending (plus Dick's sorrowful afterword) is uncompromisingly left intact.
The film has only two notable departures from the book, one good and one not. The good one occurs when the camera briefly follows Arctor's masked boss "Hank" down the hall and into the locker room. The resulting image was never stated in Dick's book, but it's much more effective visually than it probably would have been on the page, and it's in keeping with Dick's twist ending. The less inspired moment occurs when Donna tells Arctor about her dream of running off to Oregon. Arctor asks her if he could come along. In the book, she unequivocally refuses, but I guess the director thought that was too hopeless, because here she implies that it might be possible. I prefer Dick's version, because I think that it highlights Arctor's feelings of being lost more starkly.
I had some initial reservations about the casting of Keanu Reeves as Arctor, but he actually does a credible job. Arctor's disassociation from himself, when he begins to view himself as "Fred," occurs a bit suddenly in the film, but I had that same problem with the book. Also, the other characters are brilliantly cast. The film gets Barris perfectly -- a non-descript, smug motor-mouth who can always spin an explanation of why everything is everyone's fault but his own, who peppers his speech with big words and brags about his erudition without having any real systematic knowledge about anything. He's the erudite junkie, the guy who always has a pseudo-scientific explanation of why his particular drug is better and healthier than all others. But then, A Scanner Darkly does drug pedantry very well, both book and film. Everyone says defensively that they don't do that much Substance D, and Donna makes a big point of how she won't inject it (because that's so unhealthy, you see).
The film even keeps the aimless drug conversations -- another brave and laudable move, keeping dialogue that doesn't solely serve to advance the plot. The script is mostly taken from the book, and the last scene with Freck is accompanied by a voice-over narration -- there's just no way to improve on Dick's writing in that scene. When the characters talk, the film proves beyond all doubt that Dick was a prodigiously talented stylist. It is a great pleasure to hear people talking with rich, detailed, energetic flourishes, with quirks that don't sound like they were written by a Hollywood hack.
The only problem is that I feel there should be even more of this. The film is short, less than two hours long. Sure, you can't cram every single line of dialogue into it, but even five or ten extra minutes could have helped. Most notably, the ending is cut short -- the film only shows a brief glimpse of Arctor in the New-Path facility. As a result, it doesn't really convey the extent of his deterioration. We see that he had a bad episode of withdrawal in Donna's car, but it's hard to tell just how devastating the effects were. As a result, the very last image in the field doesn't quite have the effect that it should.
The visuals are great -- the use of animation was an inspired touch, allowing for more iconic and archetypal movements and mannerisms, which suits Dick's writing style. Yet, sometimes, the visual aspect completely changes the mood. Like the book, the film begins with Fabin/Freck scrubbing bugs out of his hair. In the film, this is a kinetic montage, with him rushing back and forth, close-ups on his anguished face, dark techno music, and so on. However, the book takes a measured, deadpan tone: "Once a guy stood all day shaking bugs from his hair." At first, there is no way of knowing that this is a drug-induced hallucination. It's easy to take it literally, as an opening to some grotesquely comic sci-fi story about alien bugs. When Fabin's degradation becomes clear, it hits like a sucker punch.
It's even a bit hard to explain why other scenes feel short. When Arctor snaps at the two medical deputies and asks them how he could win Donna's affection (they suggest buying her flowers), it sounds funny and cool in the book, like lines from a hard-boiled detective novel. But in the film, it looks jarring and sudden. Donna doesn't have enough screen time to really set up Arctor's love. It's also like that in the book -- I checked, and it seems that no scenes with her have been omitted -- but the book has more inner monologue, the scene at Donna's apartment is longer, and there is also a longer, sweeter reconciliation after Arctor walks out. Just a couple more minutes of film could have corrected this!
I think this is a fine film, but it's more enjoyable after you've read the book. If you haven't, your impression might be a bit disjointed. Dick's book is really more about seventies Californian drug culture than science fiction. Even though the film is very faithful, it goes through some scenes so quickly that its world isn't quite as recognizable.
Movie Review: A Humor Darkly
Summary: 4 Stars
...Capsule Review...
I liked this film. Linklater manages to achieve a similar effect found in Goodfellas--people who literally amuse themselves to death. I can relate to the theme of friends divided and conquered. That said, if you don't enjoy drug humor or dark satire, steer clear.
...Main Review...
I watch a lot of movies and I read a lot of books, but few affect me. Most stories are either pure thrills, full of bull puckey, or both. While Richard Linklater's latest film, A Scanner Darkly shovels plenty of both, it also offers more heart and tells more truth than most manage.
Mainly because it adapts from Philip K. Dick, one of those writers who deserves to be much more well known than he actually is. A Scanner Darkly is the first novel I've read in years that has set me on fire. Published the year I was born, this tale of drug punishment flows with one humorous vignette after another, all atop a treacherous undertow.
...A Synopsis Darkly...
The movie plays faithfully to the book. America is being destroyed by Substance D, a drug turning people into docile zombies. A rehab-industrial complex handles the mindless citizens, who become janitors and farm laborers.
Especially around Southern California, and a ring of friends who deal in "slow death". Bob Arctor is a noob Dr. Feelgood who dates veteran Donna Hawthorn. Together they hang with Bob's housemates: the surfer-turned-addict Ernie Luckman, the mechanic-turned-paranoid Charles Freck, and fried intellectual Jim Barris.
Bob rooms these crazy kids because he is also undercover agent Fred. Unfortunately, he has become closer to the dealers than to his fellow cops. Close enough to become as sincere an addict as a friend... As Fred climbs the chain, his grip on his own sanity begins to slip. And as Bob becomes close to his partners-in-crime, it becomes clear that one is out to burn him. Clear to all but Fred-Bob, whose drug-addled view of himself becomes very dark indeed.
...Don't Get High on Your Own Supply...
In both book and film, Fred claims he needed the cover to blend in; an excuse so weak the audience jumps on him before Hank does. His real motivation remains unspoken: Fred is loyal to the law, but Bob is loyal to his people.
Unfortunately, the film doesn't convey the love for these people that the novel implies. Most of Dick's soliloquies are reduced to voice-over monologues. More troubling, the characters antagonize each other more, as the film pumps up existing confrontations and introduces new fights. They sweat suspicion. Overall, the book characters are much more sympathetic, which reflects Dick's theme of kids punished overmuch for what they did. The novel prefers to imply tension through plot and scene development.
Both approaches work, however, because the characters become so stir-fried that the most obvious signs of betrayal get lost in D-induced head trips.
As real conspiracies become more murderous, one character calmly reveals that he rigged a hidden microphone, to be activated if the front door opened. To be sure intruders don't sneak in elsewhere, he left the front door unlocked, with a note for good measure. This scene is hilarious. But even as the audience belly-laughs, they might feel a knot of tension. Because Fred arranged for the police to plant cameras in their absence.
Plans within plans, as the late Frank Herbert wrote. Our protagonists are more like those in a Douglas Adams novel, stumbling around a dark basement for a clue locked in the bottom of a file cabinet in a disused bathroom marked "Beware of the Leopard". As much as these scenes play for laughs, Linklater knew to keep the undercurrent of desperation.
...Window Pain...
So Link manages a bit of character study. Like Bob, the audience gets to know these folks better than the "straight" people, who all look the same behind sunglasses, makeup, riot helmets, or scramble suits. The movie is structured so the audience can be sucked into the head-trips of the characters; I recommend doing this because otherwise some of the plot twists will seem too predictable.
Personally, I found the movie easy to understand. People made the mistake of dismissing dialogue in Pulp Fiction as pointless, and so they missed all clues and a lot of spice. ASD also requires an attentive ear.
It already attracts the eye. The film uses animation traced over live footage to generate a graphic novel texture. Actually, I didn't notice the overlay most of the time. It's rendered as life-like as possible while still being animation. However, the technique enables the film to reproduce effectively the hardware and hallucinations of the novel. Scramble suits and holo scanners look purty cool. Since America does not have a strong adult animation industry, at least in Hollywood, I'm pleased to see this attempt.
On a final note, plenty of minor differences and surprises exist between the book and the movie. Linklater combines several characters, such as Jerry Fabin and Charles Freck. He updated most references to the 1960's and `70's, especially the slang. I found it amusing when, amid all of the futuristic gadgetry, a character pulls out a modern digital player. Dick still had people using eight-tracks in his future, you see.
I don't think it's the great American Movie, but A Scanner Darkly inspired me to read the novel. I think many viewers can relate to the theme of friends who fall apart, and take the strength of the group with them.