Drama Archive

David Cronenberg’s films have often been referred to as “body horror” but in Spider it’s the mind that the Canadian director focuses on. This is no horror film though, this is social commentary – care in the community Cronenberg style.

Dennis Cleg arrives at a halfway house at the start of the film. Where he’s come from we don’t learn until later but it’s clear from the start that something isn’t quite right about Dennis. He’s schizophrenic and has been institutionalised for many years but has just been released into society. He sleeps at the halfway house but is free to wander the London streets, revisiting places he’s not seen since childhood.

We spend much of the film inside Dennis’ (nicknamed Spider by his mother) mind, as he relives moments from his childhood. Just how true these recollections are isn’t clear. In much the same way he did with Videodrome, Cronenberg keeps the viewer unsure of what is real and what’s a figment of Dennis’ disturbed mind.

There are two key performances in the film – Miranda Richardson’s and Ralph Fiennes’. Actually that’s not really true, Richardson alone gives three performances, playing Dennis’ Mother, his Father’s lover and as Dennis grip on reality becomes ever more unglued, Mrs Wilkinson the woman responsible for the halfway house and its residents. It’s an impressive display with the mother/lover characters at the centre of Dennis’ mental meltdown.

For the first of this series looking at film versions of books what better way to start than with a literary classic?

We first meet George and Lennie running for their lives from a pursuing mob and only George’s quick thinking allows them to escape. As the pair wend their way in search of work it becomes clear that Lennie has what we’d call today learning difficulties. It’s Lennie’s slow wits and huge size that have got the pair into newmerous scrapes but when they find a job on a ranch George begins to believe that the pipe dream he’s filled Lennie’s head with could become a reality, a dream of having a place of there own.

I’ve never read John Steinbeck’s classic novel (although after watching the film I want to) but the tone of the film never leaves you in doubt that you’re in for a tragic ending, yet at the same time it manages to make you hope against hope that you’re wrong, that this mismatched pair will fulfil their dream and live happily ever after. It’s a film that pushes your emotional buttons but never in a cheap way. We care about these people because Eugene Solow’s script, and the actor’s performances, ground them in reality. For a film that’s pushing seventy it’s dated remarkably well.