Today I watched A Scanner Darkly (2006) for the second time. This film, an adaptation of the Philip K. Dick novel of the same name, is notable for its interpolated rotoscope animation, a feature you've probably seen in a number of Charles Schwab commercials. (The process, incidentally, is done by the same guy.) I would argue that it is also notable for being Keanu Reeves' best performance. I am by no means a Keanu fan, but he really pulls off his performance in this film brilliantly. I've often felt that the best sign that an actor has been cast in your film well is how good he sounds in voice-over. There are exceptions, of course- there probably would not have been a better choice than Harrison Ford for Blade Runner (ironically, another film based on a Phil Dick novel) but he has completely the wrong voice for the voiceovers used in the original film; however, this is probably a bad example due to the fact that the voiceovers were a hotly contested issue during the making of the film and nobody involved actually wanted it in, it was a studio decision. Hence its very noticeable absence in the Director's Cut and Final Cut. But I digress; the point is that Keanu's voice-over suits the film well. He sounds tired, depressed, confused, and disillusioned.
This is the second time I've watched the film, as I've said before, but it wasn't until this second viewing that the full impact of the movie really hit me. When I had first watched it, I found it to be a good film, rather dark, occasionally funny, then it was over and I moved on. The second time around, though, I realized just how dark and fucked up it was. It portrays a future America "seven years from now" in the grip of a drug epidemic- a powerful new drug, Substance D, has hit the streets, and American troops are fighting an unseen war overseas over it. To fight this drug at home, the government has instituted a powerful surveillance program. Anyone and everyone can be spied on in any way at any time. Privacy laws have been flung out the window, and anyone even remotely considered to be part of the Substance D problem is subject to intense scrutiny. You can even be spied upon in your own home, without knowing it. Protagonist Bob Arctor (Keanu) is an undercover cop (codenamed "Fred" at the Orange County Police Station) who has been assigned to infiltrate and watch over a group of junkies, supplied by Barris (played very well by Robert Downey Jr.) in the hopes that Barris, and Arctor's girlfriend Donna (a virtually unrecognizable Winona Ryder), would lead them higher up the chain. In the process, however, he himself becomes addicted, and the resultant paranoia and identity crisis are the focal point of the film. Already quite disillusioned, and world-weary from the things he's seen in his work, he becomes much more so as the drug takes hold of him, and in a particularly dark, thought-provoking scene, he walks home from work musing on his job, on Bob Arctor the supposed drug fiend, and states that nothing makes sense to him anymore, wondering if a scanner sees things better than he does.
The soundtrack is a brilliant work, evoking the original Blade Runner score, though obviously a little more modern in spots. The use of violin in the opening credits is heart-wrenchingly appropriate, and the music is fairly consistently dark and thoughtful throughout. The music fits perfectly with each scene, particularly the aforementioned "What does a scanner see?" scene as well as a scene where he gives a disjointed speech, the first hint to his disillusionment and world-wearinss to a gathering of Bear Lodge members.
The science fiction in this film is relatively minimal; you're not going to see flying cars a la Blade Runner's 2019. Probably the most sci-fi element in the whole thing is the scramble suits, which are worn by undercover agents while working in the police station so that their coworkers do not know who they are. To this end I think a person who says (as a purely knee-jerk reaction) "I don't like sci-fi" (and are likely thinking of some spacefaring thing such as Star Trek) can enjoy this film.
Part of why this film really grabbed me, this second time, was because I realized how much it hit home. We are rapidly becoming a society where privacy laws are considered draconian, and certainly there is a war "over there" that many of us don't really understand anymore. It also brings to mind the long-running (and long-lost) War on Drugs, which the government will never win, but is willing to destroy lives forever in its relentless pursuit of an unattainable victory. I feel that many of us are going to feel like Bob Arctor, if we don't already- disillusioned, tired, confused, and unsure of who we are and how we got here. Nothing will make sense anymore, not that it ever did in the first place. The things that happen to Bob Arctor mirror the things that happen to us. We are destined to be screwed over, and not only do we not see it coming, we won't even realize that it's happened. To us, it will seem like an accident. "If a bomb is wired to a car's ignition, then obviously there is an enemy.... But if an accident, or a series of accidents, occurs..., over a period of natural time..., then the victim, whether a person or a party or a country, can never marshal itself to defend itself." (That's from the book, by the way.) And in that regard, we're doomed.
