Next to most other David Cronenberg films (Videodrome, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, Crash, etc.), this one seems a model of restraint and decorum: a horror-free, effects-free excursion into the mind of a madman (a twisted, tortured, inarticulately muttering Ralph Fiennes), afflicted with an extreme case of Madonna-and-whore ambivalence toward women. More specifically, toward his mother. Miranda Richardson adopts both personas with equal assurance and frequent brilliance (as well as a third persona, that of a nicer Nurse Ratched, when she takes over the role assigned to Lynn Redgrave). The device whereby the protagonist occupies the same space with himself as a child is easy enough to grasp, but the replay of scenes from the past at which he seemed not to be present is harder. At times he appears to be his own father (Gabriel Byrne) or vice versa. In short, it is oftentimes hard to gauge the reality of what we are seeing, though not so hard that we cannot foresee the "shocking" ending. The physical details are laid out in dreadful abundance: the rusty bathwater at the psychiatric halfway house, the dense geometry of the wallpaper, the old newspaper that lines the dresser drawer, the too-short coat sleeves and pant legs, the four shirts worn in layers, the sock stuffed down the front of the pants as a purse, the notebook of private hieroglyphics, cityscapes as strangely depopulated as a de Chirico canvas. And Cronenberg's seamless direction forges an airtight environment, or less complimentarily an airless one. Of course, this director has been moving away from straight horror and toward greater pretension for some time now. (Toward greater pretension even within the purview of straight horror: the road from They Came from Within through The Brood and Scanners and The Fly gets increasingly slushy.) And while the present foray can be said to be masterfully controlled and all of a piece, it can also be said, with little alteration in meaning, to be rather rigidified and monotonous. (2002) — Duncan Shepherd
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