A Scanner Darkly
by Richard Linklater
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DVD details
Actor: Keanu Reeves, Mitch Baker, Robert Downey Jr., Rory Cochrane, Winona RyderDirector: Richard Linklater
Brand: Warner Brothers
Writer: Richard Linklater
Producer: Anne Walker-McBay
Producer: Ben Cosgrove
Producer: Erin Ferguson
Producer: Erwin Stoff
Producer: George Clooney
Writer: Philip K. Dick
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: AC-3, Animated, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 100 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-12-19
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Model: 59417
Studio: Warner Home Video
Product features:
- Set in a not-too-distant future where America has lost its "war" on drugs, Fred, an undercover cop, is one of many people hooked on the popular drug, Substance D, which causes its users to develop split personalities. Fred is obsessed with taking down Bob, a notorious drug dealer, but due to his Substance D addiction, he does not know that he is also Bob. Based on aic novel by Philip K. Dick. Star
DVD Reviews of A Scanner Darkly
DVD 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.
Description of A Scanner Darkly
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