In the last few years, between A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE and EASTERN PROMISES, maverick filmmaker David Cronenberg seems to be a at a creative zenith in his career. Just preceding this apex, however, was this week's Reel 13 Indie, SPIDER, which, in spite of its top shelf cast (Ralph Fiennes, Gabriel Byrne and Miranda Richardson in a gimmicky triple role), is too slow and oblique for its own good.
I can see why Cronenberg was drawn to the material – the story is told from the point of view of a recently released mental patient, which gives the creative team the opportunity to play with the idea of the unreliable narrator/protagonist. Like last week's indie, CQ, the lines between fantasy and reality are blurred – here in the case of the flashbacks. The film then becomes a jigsaw puzzle for the viewer (an image that Cronenberg uses in a pivotal scene), but one that is unfortunately, all too easily solved. As the film goes on and the narrative takes shape, one can see where it's headed and hopes that it will take a turn somewhere along the way, but it never does and that is a major disappointment.
The other issue we're left with at the end of the film is that if Spider was as delusional as a boy as he is grown (as the film suggests), then what was it that sparked his mental problems to begin with? Throughout the film, we are left to assume that the events of his childhood led to his difficulties, but if not all of the events that the adult character "remembers" were true, then that is a false assumption. And therefore, the film fails to get underneath the psychosis of the main character and leaves too many open-ended questions. (I realize that since story is told from Spider's point-of-view, it would be hard to explain his issues, but there are solutions to that issue – he does occasionally remember things properly and there was a doctor character that could have filled in a few blanks for us).
One thing I'll say for SPIDER is that it's very visual. There was very little dialogue as Cronenberg used the pictures to tell the story, which made the film very cinematic. They were pretty pictures too – the cinematography by Peter Suschitzky is darkly lush and moody. However, the quiet nature of the film I think wound up doing more harm than good. Cronenberg effectively uses a deliberate pace throughout large sections of both A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE and EASTERN PROMISES, before eventually letting the dogs out in both films, increasing the impact of both of those climaxes. Here, there is no equivalent payoff and for a film that begins at 11:00pm on a Saturday, it becomes awfully hard to stay interested.