Scanner Darkly, A (2006) [Blu-ray]
Animation | Crime | Drama

What does a scanner see? Into the head? Into the heart? From the novel by Philip K. Dick - the sci-fi legend whose works-to-film include Blade Runner, Total Recall and Minority Report - comes A Scanner Darkly, brought to the screen by filmmaker Richard Linklater with an edgy graphic-novel look.

The time: just beyond now. The place: suburbia. The story: a twisted, funny tale of people hooked on Substance D. And of a government that cheerfully destroys its citizens - their rights, their relationships - in order to save them. Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson, Winona Ryder and Rory Cochrane play strung-out friends terrified of each other and of spies, Keanu Reeves plays a spy who's also one of the friends... until his two personalities begin to split. Enjoy the paranoia. Nobody's watching you. Really.

User Comment: imaginarytruths from United States, 7 July 2006 • 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.

Summary: Extraordinary and faithful adaptation of one of PK Dick's most personal.

[CSW] -2- Ok I suppose it is possible that the author and his friends didn't know that they were playing with dangerous substances but it shouldn't have taken them long to recognize how far away from reality they really were. I think they knew it but enjoyed the ride so much that they stayed on the train just to see the big train crash at the end that they knew had to be coming. I must have missed the big idea that they were struggling to find identity and meaning all the while wandering further away from reality by hallucinogenic overindulgence. Anything taken to excess can hurt you so if this was supposed to be a cautionary tale then why show it as paranoid schizophrenic hallucinations? The film was well presented and would probably make more sense if you were so spaced out that you didn't try to make sense of it but just went along for the ride like the participants did, all the way to the end of the line and then some. I gave it a 2 because it did capture the spirit of paranoid schizophrenic hallucinations, but I should have gotten a 1 because it really only showed the ride.
[V5.0-A2.0] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box.

º º