A Scanner Darkly

The glassy twinges of the soundtrack as the movie begins set a scatterbrain tone that gives one a frame of reference for Bob Arctor’s (Keanu Reeves) frame(s) of mind. Like his friends, Bob is addicted to Substance—a refined narcotic that seven years from now is blamed for nearly all of society’s ills, of which the exact nature of the manufacture and distribution is unknown. Side effects include hallucinations, nausea, and the occasional disconnect between the two hemispheres of the brain.

Bob leads a double life. On the one hand he is addicted to Substance D, but on the other he is a Scanner, a drug enforcement agent who surveils, investigates and prosecutes illicit drug users and distributors. We’re told this is the perfect cover, because Scanners wear suits that disguise their identity from image recognition systems by holographically morphing through different faces, body parts and clothes. Obviously, their anonymity and power raise the question: What if a Substance D addict posed as a narc? Theoretically, one could be assigned to investigate themselves and thus avoid discovery.

“A Scanner Darkly” is adapted from the novel of the same title, written by Philip K. Dick. I would differentiate this from traditional cyberpunk because, contrary to the genre William Gibson is credited with ushering in, at least the film adaptation of Dick’s novel goes beyond merely using technology as a plot device to thrust people into class conflict. In “Blade Runner,” also adapted from a Dick novel, Harrison Ford plays a sort of updated Sam Spade in a world where Replicants (androids that possess many human idiosyncrasies) have been exiled. In this case, the outcasts, the D addicts, are referred to a rehabilitation facility known as New Path—the name alone evokes images of fanatical religious cults.

Arctor has a girlfriend, Donna Hawthorne (Winona Ryder) who repeatedly points out just how much of a drug addict she is. But his other friends, including the drug-fried conspiracy theorist (read: nutjob) James Barr (Robert Downey, Jr.), the blitzed Charles Freck (Rory Cochrane) and the slightly-baked yet quarrelsome Ernie Luckman (Woody Harrelson), are considerably more bizarre by several orders of magnitude.

In this extrapolation of our world’s future, or at least that of Orange County, twenty percent of the population is addicted to drugs. It’s an interesting observation that, for once, gets it right… because clearly much of the growth of substance abuse is not merely in the inner cities, but the expansive and affluent suburbs replete with youngsters seeking a culture with which to identify, possessing enough money to go out and buy themselves one. At one point, even Bob ponders how his own ordered, family life degenerated to the fractured mess it has become.

The truth is, this is all merely window dressing. The real story does not reveal itself for some time, and like the Scramble Suits, layers of the story’s true identity seem to keep unfolding. Consider, for example, when James shows up at the police station to report his own conspiracy theory about Bob, or the strange behavior exhibited by by Donna toward Bob when he tries to be intimate with her. Anyone could be misrepresenting themselves and their purpose.

There are interesting tangents that peer into the nature of a drug addict including a vignette, narrated as if directly quoted from the book, in which Freck attempts a needlessly elaborate scheme to commit suicide which involves being read a litany of his sins by a many-eyed other-dimensional figure who isn’t really there. “Your sins will be read to you ceaselessly,” says the being. Yet another entire scene of dialogue involves a dispute between Barr, Freck, Luckman, Arctor and Hawthorne as to the number of gears on a bike recently purchased by Barr. Luckman himself loses count. Even funnier is Barr’s circuitous plan for eluding investigators. As the drugs keep cranking the gears of suspicion, seducing them down syllogistic corridors of absurd reasoning, you can feel them out-thinking their own paranoia to the brink of insanity.

The convoluted and, at times, pretentious conversations spurred largely by the constant feuding of Barr and Luckman are not to be confused for the director’s own condescension to the audience. These seemingly profound yet utterly meaningless rants are illustrative of the way the characters, in their drug-induced fog, think.

Sure, it may be trite to make a movie about stoners who talk volumes about ultimately nothing. However, through bits and pieces of the minutiae, we pick up (often by accident) details that make one wonder: Is it paranoia if they’re right? Even if they are, neither you nor the characters know immediately which partsof their paranoia are well-founded and which are irrational.

These digressions, seemingly random, do tell us important things about the characters and their relation to one another, but what they reveal is key to the plot so I will not elaborate further. But even if you do immediately figure out what’s going on, the value of the film resides not in what’s waiting at the end for you. The characterizations, especially Downey’s incessant theorizing (as evidenced in “Bowfinger” and “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang,” he’s a master of ad-lib), are just as intriguing as the plot if not more so. Besides, just about the time you do understand what’s really going on, the film ends on precisely the right note. After that, what’s the point of more drama? You’ve understood the story and now you have to chew on it.

Complementing the film’s narrative style is its visual language. Linklater has used a CG rotoscope process, similar to that in his previous film, “Waking Life,” in which live action has been interpolated into two-dimensional animation by computers. What humans do very well which computers still struggle to accomplish is object recognition. However, some individuals suffering from certain types of brain damage do not possess the ability to mentally discern a singular object from its shapes, edges and colors, and instead view them as collections of unrelated shapes, edges and colors. In a like fashion, the lines and shapes that compose an actors face and body may appear disconnected from one another, producing a floating collection of shapes that make it seem as if you, the viewer, are experiencing the hallucinations. I suspect this is why Linklater found the method a perfect match for the story being told.

The effect in the film is that of surrealist imagery. In an entire world that jitters and flutters ever so slightly off the plane of known reality, where’s your frame of reference for distinguishing what’s real and what isn’t?

Well, okay… when Robert Downey, Jr. turns into a giant cockroach, you can be reasonably certain you’re witnessing a hallucination. Maybe.

A Scanner Darkly • Dolby® Digital surround sound in select theatres • Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 • Running Time: 100 minutes • MPAA Rating: R for drug and sexual content, language and a brief violent image. • Distributed by Warner Independent Pictures