Dir.
Keith Gordon, 2003, USA, 108 mins
Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Robin Wright Penn, Mel Gibson, Jeremy Northam, Katie Holmes, Adrien Brody, Jon Polito, Carla Gugino
Dan Dark (Downey Jr) is an unsuccessful writer of detective fiction with a serious grudge against the world. Suffering from an excruciating and disfiguring case of psoriasis and confined to a hospitable bed, Dark is wretched. He is resentful of the doctors who speculate on his symptoms, and resentful of the nurses who offer him sympathy - although he does manage to tolerate one particularly pretty young nurse (Holmes). Dark's wife (Wright Penn) is an especial focus of his scorn and suspicion - could it be that she is plotting against him with a mysterious man from his childhood, or even a character from one of his novels? Whilst Dark is physically crippled by the pain of his condition, his mind is in overdrive - leading him into manic daydreams in which his doctors perform song and dance numbers, and fantasies involving shady characters from his own crime stories. When Dark fails to respond to conventional treatment, he is referred to the eccentric Dr. Gibbon (Gibson). Gibbon starts to believe that Dark's symptoms may be the physical manifestation of his mental state - an entanglement of the distorted present, the imaginary world of his novels, and disturbing memories from his childhood.
Keith Gordon's The Singing Detective is based on Dennis Potter's own screen adaptation of his highly regarded 1986 BBC series, and at a modest hour and forty-five minutes (compared to the TV series' eight plus) it is not surprisingly a very different experience. And it is by no means an unrewarding one, as Robert Downey Jr's side-steps the inevitable comparisons with Michael Gambon with a fantastic and distinct performance. Downey Jr's voice takes on a horribly brittle quality, which, combined with Dark's scathing and clipped remarks, is enough to make you wince. The sharpness of the script and the nasty emphasis Dark gives to each remark he makes, also bring a good few laughs. However the shorter format does appear too restrictive to allow for the twisted writer's memories and daydreams to meander and unfold, and for his neuroses to be satisfactorily revealed. Gordon has assembled a quality supporting cast - Adrien Brody, Jon Polito, Carla Gugino - but there is not enough time for our interest in their character's to fully develop. It's difficult to pinpoint any great weakness in this well scripted, well-acted, film. However its predecessor casts such a long shadow that it is hard not to feel that much of the complexity and intrigue of Potter's original story has been lost in the pursuit of brevity.
Elizabeth Griffin |
