Spider

Rating:
Summary: If you read the book, you'll probably want to pass on this.
Review: As a film in itself "Spider" is okay, but David Cronenberg's film fails, regrettably, as an adaptation of Patrick McGrath's excellent novel. All the more surprising, since McGrath is credited with the screenplay.

THE MOVIE, BY ITSELF ... is very deliberately paced. It requires something that growing numbers of MTV-generation movie fans lack: An attention span. And anyone looking for Cronenberg's trademark grotesquerie will be disappointed; this is, as many reviewers have already pointed out, Cronenberg's most "mainstream" effort to date. But there are some good performances here. Ralph Fiennes immerses himself in the twitchy, nicotine-stained shabbiness of the title role, and the always-fabulous Miranda Richardson displays her formidable range as one, then two, then later three different characters. And where did they find Bradley Hall, the young actor who plays Dennis Clegg (Spider) as a boy? They must have had photos of Ralph Fiennes at the age of ten and used them during the casting call. Sadly, there's not much of a story, though there might have been had Cronenberg been more faithful to the novel. And if you've either read the novel or think you might do so in the future, please read on ...

AS AN ADAPTATION OF THE NOVEL ... this film is pretty damned disappointing. Patrick McGrath's novel is told in the first person by Dennis Clegg, a schizophrenic who is trying to make some kind of transition from the asylum to something resembling normal life. But he's not taking his medication, and he's losing his fragile grip on reality. At least in the book we have a cohesive narrative, however delusional, by Spider himself ... but that's completely missing from the film, replaced instead by Fiennes' muttering incomprehensibly to himself throughout the picture, so the viewer is forced to speculate about Spider's history and what's going on in his head. I will admit that director Cronenberg does and admirable job of portraying working class London, and the scenes filmed down at the allotments were almost exactly as I had pictured them in my mind while reading the book. But Cronenberg squanders some great opportunities to translate some of the more hallucinatory aspects of Spider's story to the screen. And I was most disappointed by how Cronenberg changed the ending of the story; at least in the book Spider was capable of making some choices, however final, but in this film that choice is taken away from him.

David Cronenberg is capable of making successful film adapations of books. Consider his treatment of "The Dead Zone" by Stephen King, which most consider the best film adaptation of any of King's novels. As a Cronenberg fan I had high expectations for this latest effort ... much too high, it now seems.

Rating:
Summary: Itsy bitsy Spider
Review: Spider marks a triumphant return to form for director David Cronenberg after the lightweight and screwball eXistenZ. Like much of his most heartfelt work - The Dead Zone, The Fly and Dead Ringers to name a few - Spider is a tragic tale of an alienated and afflicted man. We first meet Spider - beautifully played by Ralph Fiennes - as he takes up residence in a halfway house, a dismal limbo between institution and the real world. One look at him and we know in our bones he will never take that next step. He is a man without a future and whos present is overwhelmed by his past. What unfolds is a story of memory and madness as seen subjectively through the eyes of a shattered personality. Cronenberg's direction is brilliantly assured and deceptively economical. And as good as Fiennes is, and he is good, its Miranda Richardson who delivers the films most impressive performance. She will no doubt be overlooked but certainly deserves a Best Supporting Actress nomination. David Cronenberg's Spider is a small, sad and beautiful film and one of the best of 2003.

Rating:
Summary: One of Cronenberg's best films
Review: So no, this isn't typical Cronenberg. It's obvious that he didn't write the script, and that he's adapting someone else's story. But, what a bang-up job he does with it. Throughout the film, you feel as if you're receiving less and less air. By the end, it feels like coming up after nearly drowning. This is one of the most claustrophobic films ever made (up there with Polanski's REPULSION and Romero's DAY OF THE DEAD, though those films are radically different thematically). At first I thought the film was subpar, not fully taking in just how nuanced and controlled it really is. Upon the second and third viewing, the film revealed itself to me to be a masterpiece (a word I don't use loosely). For a fan of Cronenberg or just great films in general, get SPIDER. How I'd rate it among Cronenberg's works:

1.DEAD RINGERS
2.SPIDER/CRASH
3.VIDEODROME
4.THE FLY
5.NAKED LUNCH
6.M. BUTTERFLY
7.SHIVERS
8.RABID
9.SHIVERS
10.EXISTENZ
(I think all his films are fantastic, btw, but that's how I'd rate em.)

Rating:
Summary: A Hallucinatory Psychological Masterpiece
Review: I loved this movie, but I'll be among the first to admit that most viewers are going to be less than thrilled with it.

Spider Cleg (Ralph Fiennes) has just been released to an especially dreary halfway house in London's East End after many years in a mental institution. As Spider attempts to make his way in the world, a task that we see very early in film that will be impossible, the truth of what happened to him long ago as a child begins to unravel.

This is a very psychological movie and a very slow paced one. There is almost no action at all, so if action is something you need, then you'd best give this movie a pass. If, however, you're like me and you prefer psychological dramas, you might love SPIDER. The movie was adapted from Patrick McGrath's wonderful novel of the same name and I do think the format is best suited to a book rather than to a film, but still, there will be those who will love this film as much as I did.

If you haven't read the book, there are times when SPIDER can seem a bit confusing so you really have to pay attention. The payoff will be worth it, though, I can guarantee that. The ending is a real shocker, but not in the way the term "shocker" is usually used.

The cast of SPIDER all give outstanding performances, especially Finennes and Miranda Richardson, who plays a double role (a hint as to what was really going on inside Spider's mind).

I would certainly recommend SPIDER very highly to anyone who loves deeply psychological portraits and doesn't mind a film that is quite disturbing. And, don't forget the book. It's even better.

Rating:
Summary: WITHOUT A DOUBT, CRONENBERG'S MASTERPIECE...
Review: ...and that takes absolutely NOTHING away from the stunning contributions from everyone involved in this project. As soon as I read Patrick McGrath's incredible novel a few years ago, I knew I had discovered something wonderfully unique - then I read that there were plans for a film, with McGrath writing the screenplay - and when the pieces began to fall into place (Ralph Fiennes in the title role, along with Miranda Richardson and Lynn Redgrave, with David Cronenberg directing) I knew that the film would be something very special indeed. I was almost afraid to see it when it appeared in theatres (delayed for months in the US after its European release, evidently to keep it from being confused with SPIDER-MAN) - I feared that I had built up my expectations to a degree that they could not be fulfilled. I needn't have worried - the film floored me completely, from the performances by the great actors named above, to Cronenberg's masterful direction, to the perfect set design, Howard Shore's dead-on score, everything. This is as perfect an adaptation as a film could be. I couldn't wait for the DVD to come out, so I could view the film and have the ability to stop it and run it back in order to absorb all of its nuances.

It's also a difficult review to write - the plot twists are so delicious, and so perfectly rendered in the film, but to reveal too much about them would spoil it for any potential viewers. I'll try my best not to do that - I don't want to deprive anyone of the full effect. I have to agree wholeheartedly with another reviewer below when he states that 'Hitchcock would have killed' to direct this story, and that it quite possibly surpasses anything that Hitchcock ever did (how many contemporary films could you say THAT about, and mean it...?).

According to Cronenberg's commentary on the DVD, when the script was sent to him, Ralph Fiennes had already decided that he wanted to play the part. Cronenberg stated '...two pages into the script, I knew that no one else could do it'. Plagued with financing difficulties - the director said that the financing actually had to be acquired a second time, after some sources backed out - it's a wonder the film was made at all. The cast and the director deferred their salaries, making it possible - and turning the project into a true labor of love. We owe them a debt of gratitude for their dedication and sacrifice.

'Spider' is Dennis Cleg - a man just released from a mental asylum to live in a halfway house in London's East End, very near his childhood neighborhood. Fiennes slips into the role completely - he pulls every ounce of the character's fiber out of the script, and added some touches of his own (the constant muttering was his idea) to round it out perfectly. Spider had a troubled childhood - as is evident from the memories that haunt him. The question is, which ones are real and which ones are manufactured...? As the story progresses, the web gets more and more intricate. Cronenberg films Spider in various environments - the halfway house day room, as well as his private room; on the streets in his neighborhood; in a local café, as well as the pub his dad used to frequent. All of these places trigger memories in him. He sees the characters from his past - his dad and mum, the 'cheap tart' Yvonne - appear before him as if it were yesterday again. We see the adult Spider looking in through the kitchen window of his boyhood home, watching his mum and dad and himself as a child having dinner. He eavesdrops on their conversations, mumbling lines from each character before they speak them. Each place that he goes caused more doors of his memory to open - he tries desperately to put the pieces together, and it's a painful struggle, very difficult to watch.

I can't stress enough how mesmerizing Ralph Fiennes is in this role - watching him, it's very easy to completely forget that it's an actor playing a part. Miranda Richardson is stunning in multiple roles - she plays Spider's mum, as well as the tart Yvonne...and she makes an appearance, briefly, as a third character (watch for it!). Lynn Redgrave has long been admired as a masterful actor - she brings the perfect combination of authority and coldness to her portrayal of Mrs Wilkinson, with a dash of cruelty and seductiveness thrown in. The subtleties she invokes are amazing. Gabriel Byrne does a very nice job indeed in a difficult role as Spider's dad - he has to portray his character both as he is and as he is imagined and remembered, and he does it with a naturalness that betrays the daunting task. Bradley Hall, the young actor who portrays Spider as a child, combines loneliness, vulnerability, desperation, fear and an aching need to understand what is going on in his family and his world - amazing work from one so young. John Neville is very effective as Spider's fellow halfway house dweller Terrence - '...we're not to be trusted, are we, Terrence...?' muses Mrs Wilkinson when she introduces the two. Terrence speaks a line that is very evocative of the isolation and pain felt by victims of schizophrenia, when he tells Spider, '...it's a loud world.'

I can't say enough about this incredible film - but I know I don't want to inadvertently give too much away, and I know I'm approaching my word-count limit. Pass it by at your peril - the DVD is beautifully rendered, with great bonus material - but should you ever get the chance, see this one on the big screen. It wasn't a box-office smash - and the public once again has ignored a masterpiece.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting experiment in narrative point of view
Review: Recently released from a mental institution, Dennis 'Spider' Cleg is assigned to a halfway house beside an ominous-looking gasworks in London's East End. He spends the first twenty minutes of the film muttering incomprehensibly and scribbling in no known language in his notebook. Why was he committed? Why has he been released? What will he do now? We soon discover we aren't going to be told these things - we're going to be shown. As Spider revisits the sites of his early childhood, memories of the past and experiences of the present dramatically merge, and it becomes clear that he's once again losing his mind. "Spider" is interesting mainly for its artful attempts, in both production and performance, to externalize the experience of schizophrenia. Ralph Fiennes gives a daring performance in the lead role, and Miranda Richardson is wonderful playing two very different characters who are conflated in the young Spider's mind. Cronenberg's London is appropriately frightening - deserted, mysterious and sinister - and Peter Suschitzky's thoughtful camerawork makes a convincing tilt at representing a mind on the brink of insanity. As other reviewers have noted, Cronenberg's strategy here is to present a shifting "reality" that's deliberately unreliable, until the veracity of everything is called into question. It's an interesting cinematic experiment. Ultimately, though, it's this very unreliability that undermines "Spider" as a piece of storytelling. When none of the evidence can be trusted, most of the pleasures associated with watching a mystery story unfold - anticipation, suspicion, suspense and surprise - simply fade away. It gets dull. Very dull. And there's little in the way of action or drama to lift the pace. Overall, "Spider" is a technically compelling but not quite engaging film. If you're interested in filmmaking, adaptation, unreliable narrative, or the way in which all aspects of a film's realization can be interestingly deployed in pursuit of a single theme, then you'll probably find "Spider" an absorbing night's viewing and a film you'll want to own. But if you're looking for what's usually meant by "a brilliant and powerful psychological thriller", this isn't one. Which is no surprise, really: since when was the lived experience of schizophrenia "entertaining"?

Rating:
Summary: Rare look inside dark world
Review: Spider is unlike most films you will see. A slow, deliberate pace, sets the tone, as we first get to learn the current circumstances of the newly released mental patient, Mr. Clegg. Later, we walk side by side with Clegg as he searches his own memories as to how he ended up in his current situation. Spider has an interesting take as to what these memories mean, and the methodology it uses to allow us to see exactly what Clegg remembers, at the exact time he is remembering, is amazing.

Very atmospheric, with the grey forgotten landscape of empty industrial buildings seeming to fit the forgotten souls who inhabit it all too well.

You must really pay attention, in order not to miss to much, and in the end, the movie is quite a moving experience. Perhaps the viewer will know even better, how it is to be on the brink of sanity. Almost too realistic! Brilliantly done by Cronenberg.

Rating:
Summary: Realistic representation of madness.
Review: This is a disturbing film because its depiction of madness conveys an astonishing realism. Director, David Cronenberg, (Crash, Naked Lunch and The Fly) has managed to merge the leading character's disquieting mind with the audience. This is no small task considering the subject matter, and the fact that the protagonist is suffering from intense delusions concerning his past. We see through the eyes of Spider - the memories of his childhood, though as the tale unfolds, we begin to distrust his memories and see that they blend with fantasy. The film is a study on the mechanics of repression, and the psychological notion that memory cannot be trusted.

Spider (Ralph Fiennes) arrives at a halfway house somewhere in London. Mrs Wilkinson, (Lynne Redgrave) meets him at the door. This woman is everything you would expect from a proprietor of a house for newly released mental patients. It is here that we begin to learn of Spider's childhood: his relationship with his mother and father, which is the key to the cause of his present condition. Miranda Richardson plays three different roles in the film - Spider's mother, the prostitute and later, the proprietor of the halfway house. The mother and the prostitute are entirely different, but the proprietor is an impressive blending of all three. As we learn more about Spider's childhood, we really don't know what to make of his father (Gabriel Burne)...is he an abusive man, an adulterer and drunk or merely a man doing his best to cope with an unhappy marriage? Gabriel Burne admitted that this was one of the hardest roles he's had to do, because he had to play the character on a fine line, so as not to give anything away to the audience. When you see the end of the film, you'll agree that he succeeded in his intended performance.

David Cronenberg is well known for his fascination with the darker more disturbing aspect of the human mind. He's one of those unique directors that will capture the right atmosphere for the subject under study; in this case, madness is realistically represented and seems to exude that strange feeling of the uncanny. A good example is the scene where Spider lays in the bathtub in the foetus position, blankly gazing into space. This is a disturbing image of a lost soul in the throes of passive insanity.

I would not say that this picture is an enjoyable one, but it is certainly an intriguing journey into a troubled mind, attempting to come to terms with his past and the truth.

Rating:
Summary: A glimpse into the dark world of the mentally ill
Review: This 2002 film stars Ralph Fiennes as man who has just been released from a mental institution after many years. He obviously still has mental illness, but is probably not considered a threat, and so he's sent to a dreary halfway house run by Lynn Redgrave. His isolation from the world is clear as he wanders around the streets of London and partial memories come back to haunt him. The audience actually has a chance to get inside his mind and it's never clear as to what is real and what isn't.

On one of his wanderings, he looks inside a house and sees a mother and child. Soon we understand that this family is his interpretation of his own world as a child. Ten-year old Bradley Hall plays the young boy and the role calls for him to live in a world that seems slightly askew. Miranda Richardson is cast as the mother as well as two other different roles, and she does such a good job that I thought there were actually three different actresses. It wasn't until I saw the special features on the DVD that I realized what was going on.

As the story unfolds we see the boy witnessing his father, played by Gabriel Bryne, romancing both the mother and a local woman he meets in a bar. There's a murder. And we're not exactly sure what happened because the details just don't seem real. It takes a while for us to realize that this is because the director, David Cronenberg, in his adaptation of a novel by Patrick McGrath, actually brings us inside the mind of this poor tortured man.

It's all very abstract and hard to follow and I found myself bored and impatient. But I'm glad I sat through the film to the end and saw the special features on the DVD. It helped make sense of a very complex and expressionistic film that delves deep within the human psyche and gives us a glimpse into the dark world of the mentally ill.

This is not a film for everyone. It is disturbing on many levels. It's also hard to understand. However, it is so brilliantly done that I do not hesitate in giving it a high recommendation, especially for certain kinds of film buffs who can appreciate an abstract film and not care if it leaves a sad resonance.

Rating:
Summary: Haunting and Captivating
Review: The front cover of the video box really makes it seem like Ralph Fiennes is looking for a killer named spider, making the movie appear not what it actually is. In actuality, it is the tale of a man recently released from the insane asylum to a halfway house to re-enter society. Ironically, it is near where he used to live, where a family murder took place.

Many people may say this movie is slow. I guess it's really to your own opinion - as for me, halfway through I thought to myself, "The pace of this film is rather slow." However, that was regarding the pace. Some films are boring because they present an uneven pace, but this movie takes it's time the whole way through out. It never jumps any where and it never tries to hurry things along - that is a GOOD thing.

I must also say this is perhaps the best performance I've seen Ralph Fiennes give. He barely says any thing in his role except a handful of understandable words - most of the time he is moving about the scene mumbling to himself, constantly lost in thought and with a sad, tortured look on his face. I have to say that through out the whole film I felt absolute PITY for him. Yes, pity. This was a poor man, and I personally wished I could have given him some relief, and I must confess it gave me some compassion for the plight of the mentally insane. Usually entering an insane person's mind is used for murderous psycopaths, but here it is used instead as insight on the mind of the person who wants to be better, but continually finds himself plagued by his own limitations. Here is an actor playing a mentally handicapped character I have absolute pity for when ten years ago he was playing a Nazi I loathed with a passion - if that isn't good acting, I don't know what is.

As others have suggested, this isn't for all tastes. As I've said about other films, this isn't the type of movie you watch with friends over beer and pizza, this is a movie to observe - basically, like a book performing itself in front of you. It was well worth my time, and if you like what you've read, it's well worth yours.