Spider
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Movie Reviews of Spider
Movie Review: A challenging, complex film
Summary: 5 Stars
A wonderfully acted, complex story. Warning alert: if you don't want the entire film spoiled, don't read Ryan Cragun's review below as he gives away many of the twists of the plot as well as the ending. This film works best if you just let it unfold. It gives a much more realistic look at the mind of a schizophrenic than we were given in the shallow "A Beautiful Mind".Movie Review: sweet gentle claustiphobia
Summary: 5 Stars
Big warm blanket of madness slowly suffocating. Making the tiny world in his mind too huge to bear. The smooth descent, a beatiful gentle horror.Movie Review: Oedipus in London
Summary: 4 Stars
The creepy psychological thriller, "Spider," is difficult and challenging even for a David Cronenberg film. It is also immensely rewarding.The film starts off slowly, but like the spider of the title, it spins a web that draws us into the center of its world and never lets us out. Ralph Fiennes delivers a bravura performance in the largely nonverbal role of a mentally disturbed man who, upon his discharge from an asylum, takes up residence in a drab halfway house in London. As Fiennes shuffles, mumbles and twitches his way about the house and around the neighborhood, a fascinating Oedipal drama emerges. Throughout the course of the story, Spider, the adult, begins to intrude more and more into the past as he watches unobserved the events he believes occurred in his childhood. As a boy, he obviously adored and worshiped his mother (Miranda Richardson), so much so that, as a grownup, he begins to imagine himself present at events that depict his father's supposed infidelities (and worse), clearly hoping that, by doing this, Spider can eliminate his father either as a rival or, at best, as an agent of further defilement. In order to continue seeing his mother as sacred, the young Spider finds a unique, but ultimately fatal method of "objectifying" her and the feelings he has for her (a method that fits perfectly into the old Madonna syndrome). It is an act that will have fatal consequences for the family unit.
What makes all this so absorbing is the way in which Cronenberg and scenarist Patrick McGrath delve into the subconscious madness of the main character. For large stretches of the film we literally have no idea if what we are seeing in the past actually happened or whether it is all the product of a deeply disturbed mind. Only towards the end do all the pieces fall into place, revealing the "truth" beneath the surface of this highly disturbing tale. "Spider" is a thriller in the richest sense of the term because it builds its suspense gradually and subtly, fully aware that the greatest threats come from our own distorted views of reality. Against such madness, how can any of us be safe?
Cronenberg has provided a somber, stark environment in which to unfold his drama. The drab colors, sterile settings, somber music and pervasive spider imagery all contribute to the foreboding atmosphere of the piece. As Spider, Fiennes is a revelation, conveying the disturbed nature of the character through indirection and understatement, never going over the top in his portrayal of a truly insane man, making him all the more convincing and chilling. Miranda Richardson (in a triple role), Gabriel Byrne, Lynn Redgrave, John Neville and young Bradley Hall all contribute mightily to the success of the work.
My biggest fear is that many people will tune out this film early on because of its admittedly slow pacing in the first half. If they do, I am sorry to say they will have missed one of the most intriguing and gripping movies to be released in a long time.
Movie Review: A departure for Cronenberg.
Summary: 4 Stars
Spider (David Cronenberg, 2002)Wow.
David Cronenberg gets away from his obsession with biomechanics and teams up with novelist/screenwriter Patrick McGrath (The Grotesque, the forthcoming Asylum) and a stable of brilliant actors to bring McGrath's chilling novel Spider to the screen. And the job they do is utterly fascinating.
The film is deliberately-paced (read: slow), which is likely to put off some viewers, but Cronenberg allows the characters to find themselves in the time allotted; remember, this is a character study more than it is a plot-driven mystery. Spider spends his time trying to solve the mystery of his past, yes, but that's incidental to him trying to solve the mystery of himself. As the film begins, Spider (the incredible Ralph Fiennes in the role of his career) has just been released from the asylum and sent to a halfway house overseen by a surprisingly likable harridan named Mrs. Wilkinson (Lynn Redgrave). Spider is a schizophrenic, and much of the buzz surrounding the film dealt with how well the filmmakers and Fiennes portrayed the schizophrenic mindset. Don't be looking for Sam Jackson's wonderful performance in The Caveman's Valentine here, though; Spider is almost the diametric opposite of Romulus Ledbetter; obsessively inner-directed, muttering to himself rather than shouting at the neighbors, longing for human companionship (which he finds in a couple of fellow halfway house inmates, Terence [John Neville] and Freddy [Gary Reinieke]) but unsure what to do with it when he gets it. He is far more fascinated with scenes of his early life that he, and we, see regularly throughout the film as he tries to piece together the reason he originally went insane.
The present-day scenes are strong, but the past scenes are even stronger. Gabriel Byrne and Miranda Richardson play Spider's mother and father, and both balance a very delicate line between playing the ogre and the saint Spider sees and playing the confused parents of a child who is obviously already showing signs of mental disturbance that (we assume) they truly are. Both have done some excellent work in their time, but, like Fiennes, they have truly outdone themselves in these roles. As Spider gets closer and closer to figuring out the end of the story, both as he sees it and as (we assume, again) it really happened, both Byrne and Richardson's characters change subtly and get closer to (what we perceive as) reality.
The extra DVD materials are fascinating; Cronenberg's interviews about the filming techniques and the reasoning behind some of the shots brought the ideas behind them out even more, lending an even more impressive weight to the film itself.
Highly recommended on all counts. **** 1/2
Movie Review: Realistic representation of madness.
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a disturbing film because its depiction of madness conveys an astonishing realism. Director, David Cronenberg, (Crash, Naked Lunch and The Fly) has managed to merge the leading character's disquieting mind with the audience. This is no small task considering the subject matter, and the fact that the protagonist is suffering from intense delusions concerning his past. We see through the eyes of Spider - the memories of his childhood, though as the tale unfolds, we begin to distrust his memories and see that they blend with fantasy. The film is a study on the mechanics of repression, and the psychological notion that memory cannot be trusted. Spider (Ralph Fiennes) arrives at a halfway house somewhere in London. Mrs Wilkinson, (Lynne Redgrave) meets him at the door. This woman is everything you would expect from a proprietor of a house for newly released mental patients. It is here that we begin to learn of Spider's childhood: his relationship with his mother and father, which is the key to the cause of his present condition. Miranda Richardson plays three different roles in the film - Spider's mother, the prostitute and later, the proprietor of the halfway house. The mother and the prostitute are entirely different, but the proprietor is an impressive blending of all three. As we learn more about Spider's childhood, we really don't know what to make of his father (Gabriel Burne)...is he an abusive man, an adulterer and drunk or merely a man doing his best to cope with an unhappy marriage? Gabriel Burne admitted that this was one of the hardest roles he's had to do, because he had to play the character on a fine line, so as not to give anything away to the audience. When you see the end of the film, you'll agree that he succeeded in his intended performance.
David Cronenberg is well known for his fascination with the darker more disturbing aspect of the human mind. He's one of those unique directors that will capture the right atmosphere for the subject under study; in this case, madness is realistically represented and seems to exude that strange feeling of the uncanny. A good example is the scene where Spider lays in the bathtub in the foetus position, blankly gazing into space. This is a disturbing image of a lost soul in the throes of passive insanity.
I would not say that this picture is an enjoyable one, but it is certainly an intriguing journey into a troubled mind, attempting to come to terms with his past and the truth.