Spider
Director: David Cronenberg
Year Released: 2002
Rating: 2.0
Ralph Fiennes plays a near-mute lunatic (he has only about ten lines in the whole movie; talk about getting off easy) who tells the story of his youth through a series of flashbacks in which he is an actual witness; instead of speaking, his adult figure looms in the background while his youthful counterpart is subjected to beatings from a drunken father and experiences strange feelings for his mother. The mood and style are there, but the concept is thin and psychology thinner - the Rorschach inkblots that are displayed over the opening credits suggest depth and ambiguity, but the mind games that the film plays on the viewer are more or less a form of cinematic Three-Card Monty, and the end result is equally as cheap.
