A Scanner Darkly is not the type of name movie's normally get. We're more used to catchy, cool sounding titles and Hollywood has made us unused to handling names that require you to think a bit. It's a good thing that Richard Linklater, super-director of movies like Dazed and Confused and Before Sunset/Sunrise is making this adaptation of the original Philip K. Dick (Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report) story, so that we can be assured that there will be a faithful transition from book to screen. Yeah yeah, I hear you think, that's nice and all, but what is the movie about then? It plays in the future, like all of Dick's stories, and paints us a bleak picture. The war on drugs is lost and a large part of the population is hooked on this drug called Substance D, which has a rather interesting side-effect: the user develops split personalities. Cop Fred (Keanu Reeves) uses this drug and has thus developed his own split personality, which is called Bob. Now this Bob is one of the biggest drug dealers in the city, and Fred decides to try and bring Bob down. Confused? Understandable, but you have to admit that an idea like this also sounds very intriguing. I think we can trust that Linklater will be able to turn this story into a very interesting movie.
You can already see that from the style of the movie. Linklater uses a technique where real actors are traced over by animators, while the real actors are also still visible in the background. If you have seen Linklater's Waking Life, you probably recognize this style. Some people hate it, some people love it, personally I think it looks frickin' cool. The combination of story and style could deliver us one of the best movies of the year.
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