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David Cronenberg's new movie Spider is the second powerful cinematic dissection of mental illness of the last few months. The Hours, which might well be on its way to an Oscar haul (more on that next week), traced the arc of depression and suicide. Spider takes a deeper look through the eyes of a schizophrenic man.

Ralph Fiennes plays Dennis "Spider" Cleg. We first see him as he's getting off a train. Walking slowly, he's one of the last people out of the station. He clutches a small suitcase, and he carries a small tin box with his prized possessions inside his pants. As he walks along a road, he mumbles to himself and periodically picks something off the ground. Even before we've heard a word he's said, we know that something's not right with Spider.

He arrives at an address that he's been given: a halfway house for those discharged from a mental hospital. As he steps inside, he's greeted by one of the most dreary entryways you'll ever see. Yes, it's the early '60s in a rundown section of London, but no place should look this barren.

Spider spends much of his time wandering the neighborhood streets, sitting on benches, and gazing up at the enormous gas tanks that lie across the river. Then one evening, he steps up to the back window of a small house. Inside is a mother (Miranda Richardson) and her young son, probably nine or ten years old. They're having a conversation about what happens to a mother spider after she lays her eggs. The boy is transfixed by the story, and Cleg is transfixed by the boy. But the tale is interrupted when the father (Gabriel Byrne) comes home.

Soon, Spider is following this family around the neighborhood--to the local pub, the shed at their community garden, and even inside the house. After a couple scenes, we realize that this isn't actually happening in the present day. It's somehow part of Spider's memories or a story that he's imagining.

The masterstroke of Cronenberg's film is putting the audience in Spider's head. We slowly realize that this family he's spying on is actually his own family, taken from childhood memories, and that the little tow-headed [CHECK THIS] ten-year-old is just himself from a long time ago. Once we make that connection, then we begin to understand how he came to be the way he is, but we're also forced to acknowledge that what we're seeing is highly subjective. Can we trust the memories of a schizophrenic? Is his view of his parents reality, fantasy, or something in between?

My friend Garth remarked that he had seen the movie twice and still didn't know what was going on. But that's exactly the point of Patrick McGrath's brilliant script--the mind of the schizophrenic is almost impossible to fathom. Even if we could insert ourselves into his memories, we wouldn't be any closer to understanding how he sees the world. So when one character morphs into another character (through the spectacular acting of Miranda Richardson, who ends up playing three parts) or when a character undergoes a violent transformation, we're not supposed to know if that's reality or just Spider's tangled imagination. And of course, this raises the fundamental question of what reality actually is.

Cronenberg deserves a tremendous amount of praise. His direction is pitch-perfect, and the transition from objective reality to subjectivity is handled so smoothly and subtly that we don't realize it's happened. This
makes our recognition even more disorienting--how did I get here, and how do I know this is true? These transitions grow ever stranger as the film progresses, and it's only at the end, when we pull back, that we can even begin to figure out what actually happened. That sense of disorientation is powerful and gives at least a hint of what mental illness is like. The Oedipal issues might be a little obvious, but they're also strikingly compelling.

The acting in Spider is especially strong. I've already mentioned Richardson, who takes three different parts and finds both the similarities and distinctions in them. But Ralph Fiennes is just as good. Though most of his performance consists of reaction shots and mumbling, he's terrific. It's a much more captivating performance than Adrien Brody's in The Pianist, to which it has some comparison. With Brody, I found myself getting bored. I couldn't stop watching Fiennes. And Lynn  Redgrave, as the strict halfway house director, is great in a small but critical part. Gabriel Byrne seems to get stuck with this kind of role (loutish father) a lot, and he's fine, but I was much more impressed with newcomer Bradley Hall as the young Spider. It's an eerie portrayal.

Kudos are also in store for Peter Suschitzky's striking cinematography, Howard Shore's haunting score, and Andrew Sander's barren production design. These three elements all work together to place us in Spider's world, highlighting the difficult intersection of reality and subjectivity. And I must point out the startling credit sequence, which introduces the themes of transition and disorientation with aplomb.

You can imagine that Spider is not exactly a feel-good picture, but it is a fantastic drama that grips you in its interlocking narrative and doesn't let go. I highly recommend it.   

J. Robert Parks 3/13/2003