Film Review: A Scanner Darkly

I'm not the Keanu hater that some are, but I do recognize that he can suck. There's a time and a place for his face and acting style, and A Scanner Darkly is one of those. This was a great film. One of those films that makes me applaud at the end alone on my couch as I chortle and shout at the credits, psyched that I got to be a part of that world for nearly two hours. The cast in general is just impeccable for the topic of the movie. The five main characters are played by Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Robert Downey, Rory Cochrane and Woody Harrelson. Talk about a dream-team of druggie actors! And that's perfect because this movie is all about drugs. Or so it seems at first.

Really, the film is about modern culture, dissatisfaction, deception, addiction, denial and the way that society places demands on the individual that sometimes even the individual being victimized doesn't even realize. Some of this movie has brilliant, bizarre dialogue, some of is it inane drug-fueled banter, other parts are pseudo-scientific jargon-filled babble, but together it creates a true picture of how people really talk when they don't know what they are saying, what they are feeling, or what is going on. Yet, despite the inherent confusion of this story Linklater manages to pull the viewer along with superb bits of true-life amid the desolation of these disturbed individuals.

The cartoon-like rotoscoping of the cinematography fits perfectly with themes of the movie. Using that technique in fact improves the entire movie, allowing the director to play with perception, subtlety and smoothly. To try and achieve the altered states present in the movie with regular film and special effects would have made it campy and obvious. With the rotoscoping the slight alterations in color and motion are conveyed quietly, delicately and you 'get' the changed state without being bashed over the head by it.

That the story was written by Philip K. Dick means you are in for a ride. He writes about identity, about self-delusion, about deception and despair. But despite all of that, Dick still manages to believe and convey that somehow, someway, we humans will fight against the darkness even as it destroys us.

Watch this film. Let it wash over you. Look for the weird, hilarious moments and accept, for a moment, the ideas Dick is writing about and Linklater is transmitting. Don't sweat the Keanu-ness of the film. He's the perfect vehicle for the lost, earnest soul that fills this story with all of its truth.