A Scanner Darkly

[adam_c_ruiz]

I got to see A Scanner Darkly on Saturday evening. It's a fun, trippy, and unsettling movie. I quite liked most things about it, and will get to specifics below the cut. You should see it if:

• You like Phillip K. Dick.
  
• You like Richard Linklater.
  
• You like stories that make you question identity and reality.
  
• You like stories with unreliable

Comments

[leemoyer]

We plainly saw the same movie. :)
I concur.

The ending didn't bother me per se, but the pacing at the end was weird in a slightly boring way.

As someone who's never even tried drugs, I found the animation to be a brilliant way of putting innocent audiences under the influence of D.

[adam_c_ruiz]

What I heard from others concerning the animation was that it pulled them out of the moment a bit and made it harder to suspend disbelief. They were busy watching the animation, not losing themselves in the story. I can see that, but I thought the story and animation augmented each other, like in a Miyazaki movie.

So do you think the kids and wife were real?

[leemoyer]

Yes.

I don't think she was saying that he NEVER had them.
But that indeed he sure as hell hadn't had them for years and surely didn't have them at that moment.

The 'before' and 'after' on the house was pretty remarkable too.
Sad.

My god...how did I get here?

[howardmarcrosen]

At least from the books perspective (I have not seem the movie yet), Arctor did have a wife and kids. At least, at the beginning of the book, when he has not quite lost it entirely yet, he remembers a wife and kids and a life in that house. He remembers his decisions to emotionally move away from them, because he craves the crazy Substance D life....

Of course, this may all be illusion (or delusion), but I did not get that impression.

Anyway, I will hopefully see the movie tomorrow night and I will have a better (or worse) perspective.

Re: My god...how did I get here?

[leemoyer]

Brilliant title line Hard. :)

Re: My god...how did I get here?

[adam_c_ruiz]

I missed the fact that he was still in the same house. I always figured that he left them to go be an undercover cop.

My impression is that they were real too.