There Is No Sheep: A Scanner Darkly

I've never enjoyed the assorted writings of Philip K. Dick. His rather bad amphetamine problem resulted in a lot of prose that I either found extremely disconnected, or just didn't get. Some of the film adaptations of his work, however, have special places in my heart (and my DVD shelf) - films like Blade Runner and Minority Report. Some of those adaptations have been neutrally forgettable, like Total Recall, others have taken on League of Extraordinary Gentlemen proportions, like 2003's Paycheck. And then, we have the most recent stab at PKD, the semi-autobiographical A Scanner Darkly.

On the surface, Scanner seems to be a fairly standard tale of an undercover cop (Keanu Reeves' Fred/Bob) done wrong by his superiors, abandoned to his increasing involvement in a bad scene and his inability to remove himself from it. Fred is a narc who's infiltrated a group of friends he and his department believe will provide leads on a major dealing of the drug du jour. Substance D comes across as a combination of meth, heroin, and possibly cocaine, and appears to be about as healthy as taking all three at once, in large doses, and its usage has spread to epidemic proportions. Of course, Fred is in deep, his usage increasing to the point where its begun to have severe repercussions on his health, slowly causing growing permanent damage to various sensory brain functions - and then, of course, there's the mental side of things. His tenuous grip on reality is compounded by the fact that there isn't even a human contact element within his division, like there is in Infernal Affairs. While in the police station, everyone wears a "scramble suit", a head-to-toe outfit whose outer layer is in constant flux, morphing between (and combining) assorted male and female appearances. Eventually, his investigation progresses to the point where he's asked to install spyware and monitor his house, and the subjects of his investigation who live there, and watch surveillance tapes to search more thoroughly for leads on the source of the Substance D supply; hence, the title of the story. It's also a nice twist - and more meaningful - as it comes from him observing himself as opposed to a Big Brother outside influence. As Fred becomes sicker and sicker, and we witness the tragic and pathetic life that is the lot of his fellow addicts, the story tackles the question of whether it is right (or at least necessary) to sacrifice one innocent in order to save many, and due to the author's personal experience, it doesn't appear to answer that question in the traditional liberal way.

The casting makes this film. Let it never again be said that Keanu Reeves is a one-note robot of an actor - as Fred, one shift of thought playing across his eyes speaks volumes, and his misery and defeat bleeds throughe every frame he's in. In short, he does a great job here. His friends, played by Woody Harrelson, Rory Cochrane, Robert Downey, Jr., and Winona Ryder, are a veritable fountain of tragedy and hilarity walking hand in hand, especially those first three mentioned. It's interesting to note that Harrelson, Ryder, and Downey all have had some degree of legal and/or medical troubles related to drug posession or use - a factor in them being cast, perhaps? After all, no one tells more effective stories of why not to do something self-destructive than someone who's suffered the repercussions themself. Or perhaps they were all cast just because they all did a great job, and my observation is nothing more than a very ironic coincidence.

If you're reading all this and going, "bo-ring!", then at least catch Scanner for the visual interest. I was suspicious about the full-colour rotoscoping as a gimmick; as it turned out, it wasn't a gimmick at all, but a highly complimentary way to support the film's message of disconnection and sense unreality, and, as Corey pointed out, was the only way the scramble suits could be rendered and still look good. There are a few issues with rendering roadways and cars that aren't quite in step with the appearance of the rest of the film, but this is a minor transgression and not too disorienting. In other words, the film looks great, and the medium suits the message.

My favourite anti-drug film has long been Val Kilmer's The Salton Sea, but A Scanner Darkly is certainly up there. It's not the tightest story ever told, but it's excellently rendered, fairly powerful, and generally engaging. Rated R for drug use (duh), language, sexual content, and "a brief violent image".