This is your brain on drugs!: A Scanner Darkly review

This is your brain on drugs!: A Scanner Darkly review

Richard Linklater's 2006 film A Scanner Darkly-- one of many many film adaptations of visionary Phillip K. Dick's many novels-- follows a drug agent named "Fred" whose brain is literally split, like Siamese twins, by a psychedelic drug known as Substance D (for Death). Through this disruption we see the symbiotic relationship between the cops and criminals as Fred, who's identity is obscured by a "scramble suit," does electronic surveillance on himself as a drug dealer named Bob Arctor.

This is a very faithful adaptation to Dick's novel, one of the best I've read on drug abuse and without a doubt, the most creative on the subject. Like Waking Life, Linklater chose to animate this film in that floating style of his that is essentially rotoscoping or tracing over live action elements and combining them with composite imagery. The effect of this style decision pays off by augmenting the drug induced reality of the world in which this story takes place. An example of this is when an addict attempts to O.D. on psychedelics but instead winds up face to face with a weird-looking creature from another dimension.

I believe that A Scanner Darkly snuck under the radar, mostly because of the fact that it is an animated film aimed at adults. The addition of Robert Downey Jr. as one of the paranoid addicts (Barris)who himself was a drug user was probably not a coincidence. Keanu Reeves is convincingly "dirty" and tacky-looking as drug dealer and user Bob Arctor. Woody Harrelson is also grimy as Luckman, Reeve's long-haired roommate in this film.

This is definitely one of those "you'll either like it, or you won't" films. Not that it's all that hard or graphic, it's the way it's presented. I try to tell people I know about this movie and they really want to see it, then once they discover that it's animated, they're turned off like that. This is a shame because this film's up there with the best, including Trainspotting, Requiem for a Dream, The Lost Weekend, Man With the Golden Arm, etc, imo. If you like entertaining films that are also deep you should try this.