A Scanner Darkly

(Richard Linklater, 2006)

My experience of watching this film was very true to my experience of reading Philip K Dick books (even though I haven't read this particular story): it's basically interesting, but slightly old-fashioned, it fails to cash out the potential of its own ideas, and it somehow feels lacking in pace and resolution. The animation helps to convey the phenomenology of drug-taking, and thankfully saves the viewer from what would otherwise have been a bunch of actors making lame efforts at pretending to be muntered (think: The Breakfast Club spliff scene). But Linklater already showed us this visual style (with a much better story, and to much greater effect) in Waking Life.