The details of life are acute to Spider (Ralph Fiennes), who is in a constant struggle to overcome a traumatic event early in his life that forever shapes the real world he is forced to reside in. He has been allowed to give life a second chance after a long stay in a mental institution and returns to... [More]

The details of life are acute to Spider (Ralph Fiennes), who is in a constant struggle to overcome a traumatic event early in his life that forever shapes the real world he is forced to reside in. He has been allowed to give life a second chance after a long stay in a mental institution and returns to the streets of the East End of London where he grew up; sent to a halfway house under the stern, but unsupervised watch of Mrs. Wilkenson (Lynn Redgrave).

The sights, sounds and smells of being reacquainted with his old neighborhood send Spider further down a shadowy path that reawakens memories of his where his mother (Miranda Richardson) and his father (Gabriel Byrne) raised him.

His freedom from the sterile and medicated environment afforded by the institution gives rise to an unfolding mystery that surrounds his youth. As he revisits the familiar streets, Spider soon begins to uncover the real truth, shifting seamlessly back and forth between the tragic events that polarized a boy’s adolescence to the shell of a man enduring the surreal plausible reality of today.

Further complicating matters, the halfway house only seems to both confuse and focus his perceptions at the same time. Terrance (John Neville), who also lives in the house, is a kindred spirit and supplies a certain comfort that has been absent from Spider’s life. While Mrs. Wilkenson starts to personify his delusional account of his past, leading Spider to question his own memories.

Based on the compelling novel by Patrick McGrath, who also adapts the screenplay, the gothic and fantastical world that director David Cronenberg conjures up with SPIDER immerses the audience into the depths of a deeply disturbed boy who has crafted a reality all his own; a reality that takes him to the very limits of his faltering sanity. -- © Sony Pictures Classics [Less]