Not Exactly the Feelgood Movie of the Summer

I just got home from viewing A SCANNER DARKLY and my head has just about recovered. For a good fifteen minutes post-film, I had to keep adjusting my glasses because I wasn't sure if they were on right. The film is that jarring to watch. Not since Woody Allen's HUSBANDS AND WIVES have I felt this discombobulated by a movie. Nevertheless, the movie is a powerful experience and I haven't seen such an effective marriage of style and content in a long, long time. The method of painting or digitizing the footage created a disorienting effect but in what seemed like a much more controlled style than director Richard Linklater's last use of this in WAKING LIFE. The jagged movements that result from this rhymed with the paranoid plot—both were intentionally disorienting and the visual effect played off the actors' crazed antics. In a nutshell the story takes place in the near future in California and is about a group of friends who live in a house and do lots of drugs together, but one is a narc. Drugs of course contribute to the paranoia, sending the characters into a tizzy everytime they start thinking too much. As hilarious as it was disturbing I left puzzled. I wish I had felt more for the main character; only then would I have found the film a success. But it was cool to watch. It felt like drugs, and I don't like drugs.