Movie Review - A Scanner Darkly
A Scanner Darkly (2006)
directed by Richard Linklater
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
seen on the screen at Studio On The Square
Before he brings home a stranger for sex, Bob Arctor fights with Donna Hawthorne, who uses so much cocaine, she says, she has to be careful - prohibitive - of men getting close. Bob storms out and Donna runs after him, pleading for patience and then, taking his hand, Bob's company. Bob stops, he listens to her, and in the next moment he's in his bedroom with the stranger.
There's plenty of sadness in this film, lots of tragedy, but Bob's confrontation with Donna is the only scene where the narrative isn't dreaming - not lost in looking back, or worrying about what's going to happen. Just a fight - suppressed frustrations boiling over. And as much as I want to point to that moment and argue how convincingly Linklater builds a tower of his characters' collective disappointment around it, how the whole drug-addled enterprise just slipped a little too far out of its participants' control, there's simply too much in this movie that isn't Donna and Bob.
It looks good, too - pockets of cool, deep colors and inky, dark monologues - and I should probably stand up for my favorite director and add that problematic fourth cravat. Yes, I think I will.
directed by Richard Linklater
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
seen on the screen at Studio On The Square
Before he brings home a stranger for sex, Bob Arctor fights with Donna Hawthorne, who uses so much cocaine, she says, she has to be careful - prohibitive - of men getting close. Bob storms out and Donna runs after him, pleading for patience and then, taking his hand, Bob's company. Bob stops, he listens to her, and in the next moment he's in his bedroom with the stranger.
There's plenty of sadness in this film, lots of tragedy, but Bob's confrontation with Donna is the only scene where the narrative isn't dreaming - not lost in looking back, or worrying about what's going to happen. Just a fight - suppressed frustrations boiling over. And as much as I want to point to that moment and argue how convincingly Linklater builds a tower of his characters' collective disappointment around it, how the whole drug-addled enterprise just slipped a little too far out of its participants' control, there's simply too much in this movie that isn't Donna and Bob.
It looks good, too - pockets of cool, deep colors and inky, dark monologues - and I should probably stand up for my favorite director and add that problematic fourth cravat. Yes, I think I will.
posted by NPK at 8:48 AM
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