Despite an almost psychedelic opening, A Scanner Darkly doesn't aggravate the eyes, and never belies the story with too much focus on the visual. The revolutionary form of movie making, which is created by filming digitally and then animating with Rotoshop, creates an alternate world where the room can swirl with the first intake of drugs, your friend can grow horns as you speak to him, or a police officer can wear a 'scramble-suit' that covers their real image with a million other constantly changing ones.

The visuals, instead of overpowering, become an integral part of the story, and never a mere aside to the narrative. Seeing the world through the eyes of Arctor (Reeves) means seeing his own personal vision, and it is never forgotten whose story is being told. Linklater's previous venture into this style of filmmaking, Waking Life, focused on the dream-like quality of the animation, amplifying the story's focus on whether or not it was reality we were viewing. The technique has been perfected for A Scanner Darkly, and is more ably representative of a drug-infused vision. The slight motion of background scenes gives a sickly quality to Arctor's life, and the ability to very simply transform the surroundings, both in colour and shape, lends itself well to this particular tale of drugs and deception.

Arctor is an undercover policeman working to bring down Substance D, a drug which has infested the world, and against which law-enforcers are fighting a losing battle. The tale rapidly becomes about Arctor himself, and his personal demons - is his descent an over-dependency on Substance D, or has he engineered a trapped life as a form of slow suicide? The interaction with Donna, and psychotic Barris, reveal faucets of his personality he begins to mistrust, and his inability to reliably perform his job combines with his incapability to fully function normally. Part of his role requires him to scan through constant video of his drug-den life, and the title comes from his wondering at whether a scanner sees lightly or, like him, darkly.

The actors chosen for the roles play pitch-perfect each character's idiosyncratic tweaks. From the wily drug-dealing Donna (Winona Ryder), who can never be pinned down to one particular personality, to the slowly disintegrating Arctor, who cannot control the downward spiral his 'job' is taking. The fantastic tag-team friendship of the incredibly lunatic Barris (Robert Downey Jr) and over-the-top stonerness of Luckman (Woody Harrelson) adds comedy and intrigue to the tale, whilst Freck's (Rory Cochrane) descent into madness is portrayed comically and with worrying accuracy.

Philip K Dick's novel is one of abuse and addiction, but Linklater's witty and modern screenplay makes this more than just a morality lesson. The story is well above average, and the combination of such revolutionary filming techniques with the actor's ability to fully identify with their characters, makes this movie one to certainly take note of, and is a breath of indie air in an otherwise stale blockbuster summer.

Rated 16 (see IFCO website for details)
A Scanner Darkly is released on 18th August 2006.
A Scanner Darkly – Official website