Ask most observers what is wrong with most so-called drug education campaigns, and they will tell you. The distortions of facts, the irresponsible caricatures of real human beings in the situation, the inability to consider the real-life conditions that lead to drug use. All add up to an illusion of drug use that makes some picture their heads exploding the very second they so much as get a whiff of a drug by-product. And when that illusion is broken by the more subtle, vastly more complex reality, all hell starts to break loose. A Scanner Darkly is borne of the same kind of realism as I have just described, but it takes things a step further. Set in a future where the police have been given absolute power in their prosecution of the war on drugs, and of course the politicians still have failed to notice their tactics are not working, A Scanner Darkly tells the story of a policeman ordered to go to any extremes in order to incriminate the people he associates with. At any cost to himself.
Being that I have not read the source material, I am only assuming that this adaptation is faithful. Others have said this is the case, and that this is where most of the fault with the film lies. I can understand that. Often, the film attempts to convey things that are incredibly difficult to portray in a visual medium, and especially at this running time. Scenes that properly quantify the fact that the society of the law-abiding is miserable are sparse, and the world of the stoners is too outlandish to take seriously. At a couple of points of the film, we are told that (possibly anti-) hero Bob Arctor is taking illegal substances in his efforts to find a link to his acquaintances' supplier. The problem is that his superiors do not care that this is something he has to do in order to accomplish the goal of his job. When he starts to pay the heavy associated cost, all they seem to care about is the criminalisation of his acts. Total criminalisation, a concept first broached on a Frank Zappa album, is the pervasive theme of A Scanner Darkly.
For certain, the film presents an interesting visual representation of a world that has gone so mad in its hysteria over drug consumption that it will imprison anyone. Thousands of hours went into rotoscoping the film, and the irony here is that the results would be great to watch while stoned. Unfortunately, the process also necessitates the shortening of the film in order to cut costs. Apparently, each minute of film took five hundred hours to merely rotoscope, and one can imagine how this would have had studio executives leaning over Richard Linklater's shoulder, reminding him that they only have enough money to make a hundred minutes of film. The problem here is that the resulting simplification of the story only serves to make the story even more confusing to watch. The transition from Arctor's job being a harmless way to kill time with stoners to a complete meltdown is very jarring, with no structure to give the narrative any focus. It is one thing to write a bizarre story about stoners. It is another thing to write like a stoner.
In an absurd happy accident, the actors involved are perfectly cast for their parts. Woody Harrelson and Robert Downey Jr. are perfect as the stoners Arctor spends much of his screen time wasting away with. Downey plays the calm, casual, pseudo-intellectual stoner with an eerie accuracy. Harrelson plays the paranoid, dim-witted stoner in a curious mix of earlier performances that somehow works because of how many times we have seen Harrelson act in this manner previously. The biggest surprise is Winona Ryder as Arctor's supplier and eventual girlfriend. Although her methodology in this film is little different than is the case in most of her other films, the film finds a function in which she can perform well rather than attempting to wedge her into a role for which she is inappropriate, like a number of prior films I could name. But the real scene-stealer is Rory Cochrane as a customer of Arctor who has come to the edge, peered over, and put both feet forward without taking a breath. Every scene with Cochrane is a classic unto itself.
Unfortunately, the editing is where the whole thing starts to come undone. As was the case in Smokin' Aces, characters and scenes that need the greatest share of screen time go begging whilst characters and scenes that could do with some judicious editing seem to be allowed more than their share of footage. A scene between Downey Jr., Harrelson, and Natasha Valdez drags on way past its welcome with some very predictable stoner-talk. The addition of a clever thought bubble showing Valdez' character undressing does not help in any way since it only serves to generate even more annoyance with the growing disconnect in one character's mind with reality. While I appreciate the director's choice to respect the intelligence of the audience and let them work out parts of the story for themselves, a condition of that choice is that one must leave them enough pieces to work out the things left to the viewer's mind within the film's running time. A Scanner Darkly would have benefited no end from an extra ten minutes of breadcrumbs.
A Scanner Darkly is a film where the good conflicts with the bad so much that it takes several viewings just to discern its overall quality. After two viewings, I have settled on a score of seven out of ten. It is a great film hidden inside some very questionable editing and writing decisions.
Being that I have not read the source material, I am only assuming that this adaptation is faithful. Others have said this is the case, and that this is where most of the fault with the film lies. I can understand that. Often, the film attempts to convey things that are incredibly difficult to portray in a visual medium, and especially at this running time. Scenes that properly quantify the fact that the society of the law-abiding is miserable are sparse, and the world of the stoners is too outlandish to take seriously. At a couple of points of the film, we are told that (possibly anti-) hero Bob Arctor is taking illegal substances in his efforts to find a link to his acquaintances' supplier. The problem is that his superiors do not care that this is something he has to do in order to accomplish the goal of his job. When he starts to pay the heavy associated cost, all they seem to care about is the criminalisation of his acts. Total criminalisation, a concept first broached on a Frank Zappa album, is the pervasive theme of A Scanner Darkly.
For certain, the film presents an interesting visual representation of a world that has gone so mad in its hysteria over drug consumption that it will imprison anyone. Thousands of hours went into rotoscoping the film, and the irony here is that the results would be great to watch while stoned. Unfortunately, the process also necessitates the shortening of the film in order to cut costs. Apparently, each minute of film took five hundred hours to merely rotoscope, and one can imagine how this would have had studio executives leaning over Richard Linklater's shoulder, reminding him that they only have enough money to make a hundred minutes of film. The problem here is that the resulting simplification of the story only serves to make the story even more confusing to watch. The transition from Arctor's job being a harmless way to kill time with stoners to a complete meltdown is very jarring, with no structure to give the narrative any focus. It is one thing to write a bizarre story about stoners. It is another thing to write like a stoner.
In an absurd happy accident, the actors involved are perfectly cast for their parts. Woody Harrelson and Robert Downey Jr. are perfect as the stoners Arctor spends much of his screen time wasting away with. Downey plays the calm, casual, pseudo-intellectual stoner with an eerie accuracy. Harrelson plays the paranoid, dim-witted stoner in a curious mix of earlier performances that somehow works because of how many times we have seen Harrelson act in this manner previously. The biggest surprise is Winona Ryder as Arctor's supplier and eventual girlfriend. Although her methodology in this film is little different than is the case in most of her other films, the film finds a function in which she can perform well rather than attempting to wedge her into a role for which she is inappropriate, like a number of prior films I could name. But the real scene-stealer is Rory Cochrane as a customer of Arctor who has come to the edge, peered over, and put both feet forward without taking a breath. Every scene with Cochrane is a classic unto itself.
Unfortunately, the editing is where the whole thing starts to come undone. As was the case in Smokin' Aces, characters and scenes that need the greatest share of screen time go begging whilst characters and scenes that could do with some judicious editing seem to be allowed more than their share of footage. A scene between Downey Jr., Harrelson, and Natasha Valdez drags on way past its welcome with some very predictable stoner-talk. The addition of a clever thought bubble showing Valdez' character undressing does not help in any way since it only serves to generate even more annoyance with the growing disconnect in one character's mind with reality. While I appreciate the director's choice to respect the intelligence of the audience and let them work out parts of the story for themselves, a condition of that choice is that one must leave them enough pieces to work out the things left to the viewer's mind within the film's running time. A Scanner Darkly would have benefited no end from an extra ten minutes of breadcrumbs.
A Scanner Darkly is a film where the good conflicts with the bad so much that it takes several viewings just to discern its overall quality. After two viewings, I have settled on a score of seven out of ten. It is a great film hidden inside some very questionable editing and writing decisions.