A Scanner Darkly
Directed by Richard Linklater

The realism of Monster House's motion capture animation helps give the story's fantasy elements an organic presence. Richard Linklater's animated adaptation of Philip K. Dick's novel A Scanner Darkly takes the opposite approach. Were it presented simply in live action, A Scanner Darkly wouldn't look too different from drug films like Spun and Requiem for a Dream, which aim for a grungy realism. It's a visually undefined film that Linklater elevates and deepens through rotoscoping (the technique the director used in Waking Life where live action film cells are traced and painted.)

Bland reality becomes abstract: shifting, slippery and hard to make sense of. It's a visual representation of the way the movie's Substance D (drug of choice in 2014) addicts observe their surroundings and themselves. For undercover cop Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves), identity becomes even more complicated when he's assigned a job of spying on himself. Wearing a scramble suit (a full body cover that changes a person's appearance multiple times per second), and going by the name Fred, his superiors don't know that he's among the roomed-together junkies he's investigating.

Linklater's theme of obscured identity appears even in the clever central casting. The paranoid quartet under investigation is played by Reeves, Winona Ryder, Robert Downey Jr. and Woody Harrelson - actors known more for their off-screen antics or acting range than any characters they've played. The quest to figure out who you are is a very Linklater concern, and one that frequently manifests in his films through characters' selfish solipsism. Staying locked in his subjects' heads distinguishes A Scanner Darkly in its genre, but it also limits it. Because these people struggle to experience emotional connections, verbal intellectualizing becomes the movie's most common gear. It's not stuck on obvious sloganeering, like the dreadful V for Vendetta, but the government-run dystopia Linklater presents is missing an artist's emotional perspective.

Philip K. Dick's angry lament isn't met with a necessary toughness. It's as a brainy construct that the worthwhile A Scanner Darkly has plenty going on.