Big Idea Sci-Fi

Blog Week 10 Psci-Fi

A Scanner Darkly dir. Richard Linklater

Adapted closely from the novel by Philip K. Dick

This is one of my favorite late-night movies of all time. It transcends many categories, but is mostly a Sci-Fi film at heart. It is a “1984”-type dystopian future, a tale of drug addiction and it’s consequences, and a comedy led by the antics of Woody Harrelson and Robert Downey Jr. It is a deep philosophical discussion about reality cloaked in a noir mystery, and a mesmerizingly alive animated graphic novel, exposing the audience firsthand to the harrowing hallucinations of an addict. It will certainly be a cult classic.

The main character Bob Arctor is one of many undercover cops dedicated to ending the reign of a drug known as Substance D, a drug so addictive that over 20% of the population is hooked. He works at an extremely secretive (yet effective) treatment facility in which they all have to wear “scramble suits”, which are constantly changing appearance (which works well with the animation style). The twist comes when we learn that our hero is himself an addict, and is then ordered to start spying on “Bob Arctor”.

It’s interesting to see the film play with the fact that doing drugs (at first) can actually be very enjoyable and lead to good times. A lot of films paint it as a dark, looming experience from the start, but then viewers don’t understand why the characters can’t just put the pipe down if it sucks so much anyways. As Bob grows increasingly disoriented, the audience does as well and it becomes harder to distinguish between what’s hallucinatory and what’s real. In the end, we see that the movie is also a tragedy, a mirror to our own addicted society, corporations only seeing the bottom line, an endless “war on drugs”, and a reminder of how easy it is to get lost.