Hollywood doesn’t get Philip K. Dick. They just don’t. Sure, there have been a ton of films based on his work but with the notable exception of Bladerunner – which is still a wildly divergent adaptation – Hollywood directors just can’t seem to resist the urge to muck about with his stuff, make it more orderly and just generally pretty it up. Which, of course, runs entirely against the point of what Dick was doing with his writing. So I tend to see just about all of the films based on his work but I also tend to leave the theaters feeling generally irritated at the people who went out and made those films. This, then, makes me very happy.
Dick’s daughters have just posted a set report from Richard Linklater’s adaptation of A Scanner Darkly, which they say is the most faithful adaptation of their father’s work yet. The collection of talent here has me thinking they might be right … Linklater’s a good director for this, with the right visual style and a gift for building complex dialog. The cast looks good, too. Keanu Reeves actually strikes me as a very solid choice for a drug-addled Philip K. Dick story and if anyone was ever meant to star as one of the man’s characters it was Robert Downey Jr. Absolutely perfect choice there. Harrelson and Ryder are no slouches either. Topping it off is word that Linklater will be employing some of the same techniques he used in Waking Life which seems like a brilliant choice given Dick’s rather tenuous hold on reality … I’ve got me some happy feelings about this one …
