Spider

Another one of Cronenberg’s film adaptations of books that are supposed to beimpossible to adapt. Patrick McGrath’s very introspective novel has beentransformed – by McGrath himself – into a brilliant multilayered script,which Cronenberg in turn has made into a contemplative, slowly suspensebuilding, drama. It is garnished with sublime performances by Ralph Fiennes,Gabriel Byrne, Lynn Redgrave and Miranda Richardson.The insect in the film’s title is David ”Spider” Cleg, a thirty-somethingdiagnosed with schizophrenia twenty years ago. He was recently transferred from a mental institution to a halfway house, where the doctorshope he’ll take his last steps toward sanity. Instead, he slips back into oldhabits – to the important childhood memory he constantly keeps replaying inhis mind. What Cronenberg does to McGrath’s story is to tell it through Cleg’s twistedmind. Spider’s blurred reality is the same as the one we as an audience experience.Of course it is a method that demands a lot from us as viewers – but also onethat is extremely rewarding.MATTIAS VESTIN