A Scanner Darkly

Directed By:
Richard Linklater

Based on a book by Philip K. Dick

Keanu Reeves - Fred Arctor
Rory Cochrane - Charles Freck
Robert Downy Jr. – Barris
Wynona Ryder - Donna Hawthorne

A Scanner Darkly is not your usual science fiction film in that it is animated instead of the usual harsh if not cutting edge reality. I for one found it refreshingly different and it seemed to fit the story.

Scanner Darkly is adapted from the prolific science fictions writer Philip K. Dick’s story also by the same title. In it Keanu Reeves plays an undercover agent that tries to catch dealers of Substance D - a hallucagenic drug that causes split personalities. Something like 20 percent of the population is addicted so this agent has his work cut out for him obviously. These agents wear suits that disguise their identities by constantly shifting into new persons. Though I wonder why an old fashioned mask and voice manipulator won’t do. Anyways this agent has Fred Arctor’s house bugged with surveillance cameras to catch him. Now Fred Arctor has two pretty strange and amusing friends that live with him. One is very smart but has no common sense, the other is just dumb. The smart one constantly comes into headquarters to rat on Arctor.

Fred Arctor is addicted to Substance D big time. So much so in fact that his left and right brain hemispheres have “disconnected” and he lives a dual life - as the agent who is watching his house. Since he wears the special suit no one knows it is him. He has to take tests at his work which indicate he is a user. Big surprise. However, his boss has known for quite some time that he was a user but just used him to get to his roommate Barris. So now the agent/Fred Arctor is sent to rehab and eventually is sent to a farm. Below the corn that he sprays grows the deadly blue flower from which the drug is made. Unfortunately Arctor is so catatonic by this time that it really doesn’t register. There is some sick irony in the fact that the rehab corporation is the same one that is growing Substance D.

The hazards of drug use are clear in this movie. Apparently his book was dedicated to those the author knew who had wasted their lives with mind altering drugs. Probably the best performance is done by Barris. He is wonderfully eccentric and seemingly harmless and adds some needed humor to the film. As I’ve said the movie with its shifting colors and unorthodox rendering is very appropriate for the genre and subject. On the flip side it seems strange that no-one asks Arctor what he does during the day - nor do we see him “switch” from one personality to the other. A good rental.

2 stars