.MOVIE LISTINGS | MOVIE REVIEW ARCHIVE | THEATER INFO Future Imperfect BY MOLLY TEMPLETON A SCANNER DARKLY: Directed and written for the screen by Richard Linklater. Based on the book by Philip K. Dick. Starring Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey, Jr., Woody Harrelson, Winona Ryder and Rory Cochrane. Warner Independent Pictures, 2006. R. 100 minutes. Whoa: Keanu Reeves in A Scanner Darkly. The future's not so bright in Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly. Seven years from now, cops pull dissenters off the streets, everyone is under constant surveillance and drug use is epidemic. Substance D, created from an innocent-looking flower, does weird things to user's heads, dividing their minds, messing with reality. Created with the same animation-over-live-performance technique with which Linklater made Waking Life, A Scanner Darkly is disconcerting, funny and dark. Skin tone and features are constantly shifting, even when the characters aren't wearing "scramble suits," costumes that hide one's appearance behind an everchanging array of other faces and bodies. The effect is just right for a film that explores identity confusion, but the story doesn't quite keep up: Bob Arctor's (Keanu Reeves) disconnect between his life as an anonymous, scramble-suited cop investigating the source of Substance D and his undercover life in a group of addicts isn't as effective as it could be. Psychologists update Arctor on his mental state, but the film relies on them to fill in the audience as well. Sharp performances keep things interesting: Robert Downey, Jr. is in fine, nattering form as a particularly paranoid member of Arctor's group; Rory Cochrane, twitchy and hallucinating as Freck, is so nervous and bug-eyed he makes your skin crawl; Reeves, with his perpetually perplexed expression and hollow voice, is perfectly cast as a confused semi-do-gooder. With its dreamlike visuals and lethargic pacing, A Scanner Darkly will entrance some viewers and alienate others. It's a long, strange trip, but the hopeful, horrifying ending brings the film's dystopian vision into fascinating focus. – Molly Templeton A Scanner Darkly opens Friday, Aug. 4 at the Bijou.
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