A Scanner Darkly has finally been released here in the UK which means after a long wait I got to go and see it on the big screen. Before I share my thoughts on the film, I should probably point out my bias; If you are a regular reader you will probably know that Philip K Dick is one of my favourite authors, and also that Richard Linklater (who directed Scanner) is one of my favourite directors.

Needless to say, I turned up to the theatre with high hopes.

I wasn’t disappointed. From the opening sequence until the rolling credits at the end I was captivated, I knew I had seen a film that was going to be up there amongst my favourite movies for a long time to come.

For those of you not familiar with the book, It is based in California a few years in the future where the police are losing the war against drugs. The film/book looks at the lives of a small group of people who have become reliant on a popular drug known as “Substance D” or “Death”; it centres on one member of the group called Bob Arctor who is working as an undercover cop to try and infiltrate the drug trade, but in the process has become a user himself.

However, the film is really about the experience of Arctor and his friends losing their grip on reality and descending into psychosis from using the drug. The brilliance of the original book was the way it got inside Arctor’s head, following him as he slowly became more and more confused about what is going on around him. I think Linklater has managed to bring across a lot of this feeling from the book, although obviously it is slightly different in the form of a movie. I really feel Linklater has understood what Scanner is all about, what Dick was trying to portray through the novel; he has without doubt done the most accurate ”Dickian” adaptation to date. He changed a few plot details from the book, and left a few things out, but I think this was appropriate for the adaptation to film as it makes the story a bit less confusing for viewers who haven’t read the book.

Keanu Reeves plays Arctor, and although perhaps not the world’s best actor, he is well suited for the part. Winona Ryder, Woody Harrelson and Rory Cochrane are also good, however the real star of the show is Robert Downey Jnr. as Barris, he plays the intense, hyper, yet deeply disturbing character perfectly, really bringing the paranoia of the story alive.

One of the most talked about aspects of the movie is the visuals which are produced using a technique called rotoscoping (animating over live footage), similar to that used on Linklater’s other film Waking Life. Some find the animation distracting which I can understand, but I really felt it added to the movie; it creates a sense of unease throughout, with some aspects of the environment not quite fitting in, and allowing hallucinations that would not be possible with pure live action. This is most evident when we are introduced to the “Scramble Suit” which is a camouflage that cycles through millions of images of people, creating an ever changing montage of faces and bodies, rendering the wearer unrecognisable.

Scanner, like any film, has its faults. The plot could be quite confusing for someone who hasn’t read the book, and the changes between styles (comedy, despair, suspense) can be rapid at times. I felt the score wasn’t outstanding, although there is a few flashes of brilliance, most of the time the music takes a back seat to the speech; it would have been nice to have some more moments when the sound really came through powerfully.

Overall I would give Scanner an enthusiastic thumbs up. I felt that although it was close to the book, it gave me a very different experience in the form of a movie; Linklater gave the story a slightly different emphasis but still managed to get across most of the best things about the book. It is intelligent yet beautiful, complex yet accessible and moving yet subtle; my favourite film of the year so far.