Tagline: Everything is not going to be OK
“A Scanner Darkly” is set in suburban Orange County, California in a future where America has lost the war on drugs. When one reluctant undercover cop is ordered to start spying on his friends, he is launched on a paranoid journey into the absurd, where identities and loyalties are impossible to decode. It is a cautionary tale of drug use based on the novel by Philip K. Dick and his own experiences.
Like a graphic novel come to life, “A Scanner Darkly” will use live action photography overlaid with an advanced animation process (interpolated rotoscoping) to create a haunting, highly stylized vision of the future. The technology, first employed in Richard Linklater’s 2001 film “Waking Life,” has evolved to produce even more emotional impact and detail.
LOCATION: Suburban Orange County, California.
TIME: The near future.
America’s endless and futile war on drugs has become one and the same with its war on terror. Reluctant undercover cop Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves) follows orders to start spying on his friends, Jim Barris (Robert Downey Jr.), Ernie Luckman (Woody Harrelson), Donna Hawthorne (Winona Ryder) and Charles Freck (Rory Cochrane). When he is directed to step up the surveillance on himself, he is launched on a paranoid journey into the absurd, where identities and loyalties are impossible to decode. Based on legendary science-fiction author Philip K. Dick’s own experiences, “A Scanner Darkly” tells the darkly comedic, caustic, but deeply tragic tale of drug use in the modern world. The film plays like a graphic novel come to life with live-action photography overlaid with an advanced animation process—a method known as interpolated rotoscoping, first employed in writer/director Richard Linklater’s 2001 film “Waking Life” — to create a haunting version of America, seven years from now.
Austin City Limits
Linklater fine tuned the script during two weeks of rehearsals with the cast in Austin, Texas before principal photography began. “Richard really informed the final script with what we did during rehearsals,” says Reeves. “The characters were allowed to develop, and eventually became a fusion of the character in the novel, Richard’s adaptation, and what we as actors brought to it. It was great to work like that because you’re participating in it.”