FILM: A Scanner Darkly

i saw this film just ysterday and i fell in love with ti straight away, has anyone else seen it, here is a biit about the film and the actors/voices::

ACTORS:


Keanu Reeves Bob Arctor / Fred / Bruce
Rory Cochrane Freck
Robert Downey, Jr. Barris
Woody Harrelson Luckman
Winona Ryder Donna


PLOT:

In the near future (seven years from now), America has lost the war on drugs. A highly addictive and debilitating illegal drug called Substance D, distilled from small blue flowers, has swept across the country. In response, the government develops an invasive, high-tech surveillance system and puts in place a network of informants and police narcotics agents.

The main character, Bob Arctor (Reeves), is a drug user who lives in an unkempt suburban tract house in a poor neighborhood (Anaheim, CA) littered with garbage. Arctor lives with several house mates, who are heavy drug users, and they pass their days by taking drugs and having long, bizarre, drug-induced conversations. Unbeknownst to the other drug users, Arctor is also an undercover police agent, codenamed Fred, who has been assigned to spy on them. Arctor shields his true identity from the people in the drug subculture by living in a poor neighborhood, adopting a grungy, unshaven look, and using drugs.

At the same time, as the undercover officer Fred, Arctor also hides his identity from his fellow police officers by wearing a high-tech "scramble suit" that changes his voice and appearance. Arctor meets his superior officer, Hank, at the police station every day. Like Arctor, the superior officer wears a "scramble suit" that changes his voice and appearance. Arctor doesn't know his superior officer's true appearance or age or even if the officer is a man or a woman.

While posing as a deadbeat drug user, Arctor becomes addicted to Substance D (often known simply as Death), a powerful psychoactive drug which causes a dreamy state of intoxication and bizarre hallucinations; chronic users may develop a split personality, cognitive problems, and severe paranoia. Arctor falls in love with an attractive young woman named Donna Hawthorne (Ryder), a user of Substance D and cocaine, who is part of the drug scene.

Due to Arctor's chronic and heavy use of Substance D, he develops cognitive problems which stop the two hemispheres of his brain from communicating. As a result, Arctor is no longer able to distinguish between his roles as a drug user and a policeman, which makes him incapable of performing his job as a narcotics agent. Arctor's superior officer, Hank, reprimands Arctor for becoming addicted to Substance D while undercover, and warns him that he will be disciplined.

Hank turns out to be Donna, the woman whom Arctor was in love with. Arctor, of course, could not recognize Donna at the police station because she was wearing the "scramble suit." After Donna reveals to Arctor that she knows his identity, she takes Arctor to "New Path," a corporation that runs a series of rehabilitation clinics. Arctor begins to experience the severe symptoms of Substance D withdrawal. It turns out Donna was part of a greater police operation to infiltrate New Path, and Arctor had been selected, without his knowledge or consent, to carry out the sting.


Robert Downey, Jr. as Jim BarrisAs part of the rehabilitation program at New Path, Arctor is renamed "Bruce" and put through psychological reconditioning treatments. Arctor has serious neurocognitive deficits (i.e., brain damage) from his withdrawal from Substance D, which has turned him into a mentally retarded, childlike automaton. To continue his rehabilitation, New Path sends Arctor to work at an isolated New Path corn farming commune. Through the haze of his cognitive deficits, Arctor spots rows of blue flowers hidden between rows of corn; these blue flowers are the plant source of Substance D. As the film ends, Arctor hides one of the blue flowers in his boot, so that, when he returns to the city New Path clinic during Thanksgiving, he can give it to his "friends"--people who are undercover police agents (i.e. Donna).


its dedicated to people who have suffered massive brain damage due to drug abuse:

So if anyone else has seen it what did you think i'm interested to know, because i thought it was well written and brilliant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scanner_Darkly_(film)#Cast

heh, i really love this movie (incase you couldn't tell)
i had to watch it a few times before i understood it properly,
i was focusing too much on the animation >.<
GAH i love it,
but i have to finish reading the book,
the film was pretty loyal to it actually, which makes it even better

its sad that no one has posted here

I love this.
The plot twist is absolutely brilliant. I've read the book, I highly recommend that because it's kind of beautiful and depressing at the same time. It's wonderfully written, here are some quotes:

"Then shall it come to pass the saying that is written," a voice said. "Death is swallowed up. In victory." Perhaps only Fred heard it. "Because," the voice said, "as soon as the writing appears backward, then you know which is an illusion and which is not. The confusion ends, and death, the last enemy, Substance Death, is swallowed not down into the body but up - in victory. Behold, I tell you the scared secret now: we shall not all sleep in death"

"Hey, Donna, man," he said. "Do you like cats?"
She blinked, red-eyed. "Drippy little things. Moving along about a foot above the ground."

"I saw," Bruce said. He thought, I knew. That was it: I saw Substance D growing. I saw death rising from the earth, from the ground itself, in one blue field, in stubbled color.

I think it's one of my favourite last lines from a book, ever.