A Scanner Darkly

What’s the Story?

Set in the near future ("seven years from now"), and based on a 1977 Philip K. Dick science fiction novel, A SCANNER DARKLY concerns undercover narcotics agent Fred (Keanu Reeves), who is also a dealer named Bob. To keep his cover, he's been using, and now he's hooked on a fictional futuristic drug called Substance D. Bob is supposed to uncover some dealing kingpin, who may be himself. His roommates are Barris (a very memorable Robert Downey Jr.) and Luckman (Woody Harrelson).

Is It Any Good?

To the extent that A Scanner Darkly adopts any conventional form, it establishes Bob as the most sympathetic of the addicts. Examined by doctors, Bob learns that his use of D is having its inevitable effect, severing the hemispheres in his brain, such that he can no longer keep track of his multiple lives, forgetting where he is and what he's doing. Primary among Bob's confusions is his relationship with his girl, also his dealer, Donna (Winona Ryder). Like other woman characters imagined by Philip Dick, Donna is more baffling and remote than dependable, but she also pulses with a sense of grim knowledge.

One of the film's most compelling inventions is the "scramble suit," which serves partly as undercover device for Bob and his co-workers, partly as means to evade responsibility and seek revelation, and partly as metaphors for lost identities. The characters who wear them look like everyone and no one, their outward appearances shifting millions of times per minute. Scanner's unique animation is striking, and the conspiracy that begins to unravel -- through a disintegrating drug addicts perspective -- is equally seductive. Mature viewers may not always understand what is happening on screen, but they will be compelled none the less.