A Scanner Darkly

I saw A Scanner Darkly today, and I'm still not sure what to make of it. It's an interesting film, definitely, and it delivers a respectable amount of strange weirdness. I like that. I like Keanu Reeves in it; he's a solid center, and the role suits his vague cluelessness. I like Robert Downey's paranoid nutjob. I like Woody Harrelson's wasteoid. I like Rory Cochrane's even more wasted wasteoid. And I like seeing Winona Ryder again. I like the rotoscoping cartoony look much more than I expected to; it works well for the triptastic subject matter, and it's even occasionally beautiful. I like a lot of the very artful and bizarre dialogue. I like that it's even funny sometimes. I like a lot about this film.

However, it really takes it's time. At 100 minutes, it feels really long. There's not so much of a plot as there are thematic elements that are being addressed, and the film is in no real hurry to do so. Tension underlies most of the scenes, but it doesn't really build much. While the sanity of Bob Arctor (Reeves) seems to be the biggest thing at stake, watching him unravel isn't enough to advance the story. I don't know enough about him to compel me, and what I know doesn't make me care much. It's the same with the other characters. Not that I need to love them, but they seem much more like representations than actual people. Yes, these may be stylistic choices, but they don't help to hold my interest.

As much as I appreciate what this film wants to be, I don't think it really succeeds. Was Richard Linklater really the right choice to adapt and direct this Philip K. Dick novel? With a more driving script and a more focused director, it might have been spectacular. As is, A Scanner Darkly meanders us to nowhere.