eric262003 When David Cronenberg directs a film, he gives you the assumption like you know him only to to find out at the last minute that he caught you off guard. Here in "Spider", he perfectly created a thriller with so many twists it would make Alfred Hitchcock green with envy. It truly is a film that you could easily get invested into and keeps you glued to seat in its entire duration.In the opening scene, we see passengers getting off the train who looks like they know where they want to accomplish whatever is on their busy agendas. These civilians would rather be anywhere than loitering around a train station. We watch these individuals progressively pour out of the train all the way up to the very last person as he shyly and slowly get off the train. Here we are introduced, to a mentally disturbed gentleman named Dennis Cleg (Ralph Fiennes) whom everyone refers to as "Spider".While everyone's rushing off, Spider takes his time, collecting his items he clutches dearly to him which includes a cylindrical candy tin with possessions inside wrapped up into a sock stuffed in his trousers and carries on after everyone's gone.Along the way, Spider picks up other assorted items along the way as he walks in the rain as he enters into a halfway house for the special needs who could walk in and out whenever they feel pleased. The patients are under the supervision of the well-meaning Mrs. Wilkinson (Lynn Redgrave) even though the residents think she's a cruel tyrant. The resident is not far from where Spider grew up and the horrid memories from his past continues to haunt him.Spider reminisces the time he was an introverted little boy (Bradley Hall) living with his sweet mother (Miranda Richardson) and his always inebriated, philandering father (Gabriel Byrne). His father's favourite hangout is at the Dog and Beggar where he's friendly towards a vulgar blonde hussy named Yvonne who seems attracted to him.If I give too much away I'm spoiling it all for you. What I will tell you is that the manifestations in his mind are not entirely real. Back to the present, Spider, hidden in his room, often keeps a plethora of notes that are written indecipherable that only he could comprehend. He often smell gas and is very protective about his domains from any incoming intruders. Fiennes truly shines in his performance combining the quirks and tics we get a better understanding of where he's coming from. Richardson is memorable in her performance as his mother and has great scenes.The acting may be mesmerizing, the life of the party is to director David Cronenberg. He's done several great classics like "Dead Ringers", but this film he has truly outdid himself. But he didn't come to the party alone. His usual alums joined in including his sister, costume designer Denise Cronenberg, cinematographer Peter Suschitzky and composer Howard Shore. The film's pastiche has a nostalgic vibe similar to the silent film era. The atmosphere is just pure gold. From the opening credits to the closing scenes every shot is done in detail.Spider is the character that stands alone from everyone and his at times incoherent mutterings brings this character to life. This compliments quite well to the settings of a darker side of London that has not aged one bit."Spider" is a mystery film that isn't really about solving crime scenes, but about special case trying to piece together images of his past in the wrong direction. Spider's problem solving is executed in a non-linear fashion but in a rather piece-by-piece pattern almost like solving the complex puzzle or the web of strings he has stretched that he performed in his youth and adulthood. But through it all we're never tired of following this sad soul in his journey as he's searching for the truth.

SnoopyStyle Dennis Cleg (Ralph Fiennes) is released into a halfway house for the mentally ill in London. He is a schizophrenic nicknamed Spider by his mother. He meets another mentally ill person in Terrence (John Neville) at the home which is run by Mrs. Wilkinson (Lynn Redgrave). He relives his childhood with his mother (Miranda Richardson) and his father (Gabriel Byrne).This is a very slow movie. Dennis is not a talkative character. He mostly mumbles to himself. The movie has a tough time keeping any energy with so much quietness. This being a David Cronenberg movie. I was hoping for crazier visions of what a schizophrenic must see. It may be a little too on-the-nose for him. What this movie has is a sense of the interior of Dennis' mind and a pitch-perfect performance from Ralph Fiennes.

thismango In Spider, Cronenberg seems to have been trying to move into a new style, more visually subtle and without the reliance on special effects. Unfortunately, he has also started to toe the line politically and psychologically, losing the radical edge of some earlier films.The central performance by Fiennes as Clegg is technically interesting and appears at first to be a well researched and sympathetic approach to mental illness. His script (if you can call it a script) consists mostly of mumbling his own internal dialogue. His desperate attempt to make sense of his life by writing down childhood memories in his own invented language is quite moving. The character rings true to this extent.Cronenberg's typical multi-layered distortion of reality is present. The adult Clegg is shown as an observer at various key events in his childhood, telling us that we are seeing these events as memories in the present. Thanks. However, we never really know which are real and which are imagined. Did the blonde slapper in the pub exist at all? Did Clegg actually kill his mother or is this just another symbolic building block in his psychosis? His father's reaction to her death in the house seems unnaturally muted, which suggests this may be another figment - or is it just poor acting? The present-time action of the film takes place over just two or three days while he is living in a halfway house after release from a secure mental institution.This is a theoretically ambitious film, so I feel justified in judging it on theoretical grounds. It is strongly Freudian in its psychological theory. One of the first disturbances to Clegg's psyche comes when he finds his mother trying on a night-dress. He runs away when she says she's trying to make herself attractive for his father. This is obviously supposed to show the formation of the Oedipus complex which dominates the film's psychology. The Madonna-whore imagery of the blonde- and dark-haired mothers is also a rather heavy-handed effort at psychological or even esoteric depth.More disappointing is that there is no convincing explanation for Clegg's psychosis apart from Freudian dogma. It just happens, and isn't it a shame. The shame is that Cronenberg has backed away from the radically critical position of films like Videodrome to this completely orthodox embodiment of Freudian psychology and the organic disease model of mental illness.Spider takes itself very seriously, without having much to say. If it had been able to show some kind of inner aetiology from a contingent and biographical rather than a purely theoretical point of view, it could have been a decent drama.

Lantzet * A stunning psychological thriller, with very unexpected turns, like in true thriller. However, the film avoids the horror trap, where the shocking scenes are the film's objective in itself. There are no such scenes in this film. * Though a thriller, yet not intended to be only that. Instead, it is an almost clinical, cold description of a schizophrenic. One almost feels what it is like to be a schizophrenic. This was so expressive that I had dreams the night after I saw the film, which I seldom have. * The film shows a deep human tragedy of the main character. However, it does not fall into the trap: "that poor mentally-disturbed human and that inhuman society which treats him as ... mentally-disturbed". * Summing up: - A brilliant thriller with a psychological depth, or rather a drama in a thriller setting. - But neither masterpiece of thriller nor masterpiece of drama. - With superb acting (R. Fiennes - main character) and direction (D. Cronenberg). - Leaves a deep, long-lasting impression and many questions to think about. - I could watch this film once more after some time.