I just watched the movie, A Scanner Darkly, last night. At first I sat there, sort of confused, stunned really, not sure if I was enjoying it or just intrigued. I kept watching. After a bit I realized I didn’t want to turn it off, but still wasn’t sure if I was liking it. It’s strange, and yet sort of beautiful. I’d forgotten it was animated, yet you really can’t say animation. It’s more like the film was painted on top of the images the film captured. Which, in watching what we around my house like to call “the stuff” afterward, is exactly what they did. For 18 months after shooting had wrapped. They filmed for a few weeks, and then took a year and half to “animate” the film. A fascinating process.

But really, past the visual interest, this film is so much more than just that. It’s a sweet, sad, twisted tale from the master of such things… Philip K. Dick. And for those of you who don’t know who he is, you’ve probably heard of the movies made from his work… Minority Report, Paycheck, and the most famous, Blade Runner. What makes Scanner different from those other stories is that it’s more personal, semi-autobiographical in fact. There are no big car chases, no gadgets, no aliens or robots.

It’s the story of a not so distant future where we, as a culture, have lost the war on drugs. A huge portion of the population is addicted to the most addictive substance ever known… substance d. The story focuses on a small group of individuals caught up in it and completely effected by it. Directed by Richard Linklater, the guy who brought you “Waking Life”, the material in the novel comes to life, enhanced to a further degree by the animation, not in spite of it. Linklater also wrote the screenplay and, in deference to the original material, he didn’t change much of the dialogue. And the dialoge… it’s spectacular. In Robert Downey Jr.’s rants, Keanu Reeve’s malaise, Winona Ryder’s eventual humanity, and Rory Cochran’s lost Freck, we find the beauty of words well put together. And to my surprise, I also found that these are were people we could somehow relate to. I sat there thinking that if I took not so many steps in any mental direction, I could be one of them. It’s a world tipped on it’s end and out of control. Much like Philip K. Dick’s life at the time he wrote it, when he was abusing prescription amphetemines and ranting paranoid about how the government was watching him.

I finished the film and sat there, wanting to see more. So… I watched “the stuff”, and was glad I did. If you haven’t seen A Scanner Darkly. See it. It won’t be for everyone, but it definitely gets you thinking, and once you start thinking you realize how pertinent the messages in it are today… done in only the way good science fiction can. It’s worth a look.

For other opinions on the film check out A Scanner Darkly at Rotten Tomatoes