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The Singing Detective
Even a hardcore Robert Downey Jr fan like myself found it extremely difficult staying invested in a 2003 cinematic acid trip called The Singing Detective that scores some originality points but loses just as many for its confusing approach to a rather simple premise.
Robert Downey Jr. plays Dan Dark, a writer who is suffering from a very serious skin disease that has him looking like a burn victim. The author is re-working the first book he ever wrote in his head, a 1950's detective tale centered around a murdered prostitute. As Dark lies in his hospital bed, he begins to hallucinate about his disease, the book, his childhood, and his marriage. These hallucinations manifest themselves in the form of elaborate musical numbers, characters from the book visiting Dark in his hospital room, and intimate looks at how his childhood and marriage are connected to this book, which he is trying to work into a screenplay, which apparently has gone missing.
The screenplay is based on a BBC television series created by Dennis Potter, who was also the screenwriter for the 1981 Steve Martin musical Pennies from Heaven, where the actors lip-synched to original 1930's recordings and the same gimmick is employed here with some great music from the 1950's, but Potter really let this one get away from him, with Downey's character jumping from hospital bed to nightclub stage to becoming the central character in his novel at an absolutely exhausting pace. The supporting characters are also moving from the hospital to the novel to the middle of Dan Dark's brain. What we have here is an author trying to decipher the meaning of his life, an outrageous variation on films like 8 1/2 and All that Jazz that utilize extreme theatricality in order to glam up the kind of story we've seen many times before.
It was no surprise to learn that this film was directed by actor Keith Gordon, who played teenage Joe Gideon in All that Jazz. Clearly, Gordon was paying attention to what Bob Fosse was doing on the set of that film because there's a real Fosse influence in the look of the film and the staging of the musical numbers which are seamlessly woven into the narrative. Unfortunately, keeping track of said narrative gets tiresome pretty quickly.
Robert Downey Jr's unhinged performance in the starring role is a big plus and he does have a strong cast behind him including Robin Wright as his wife, Jeremy Northam, Adrien Brody and Jon Polito as characters from the book, and Saul Rubinek, Alfre Woodard and an unrecognizable Mel Gibson as hospital personnel, but the frantic direction and exhausting story eventually weigh this one down.
Even a hardcore Robert Downey Jr fan like myself found it extremely difficult staying invested in a 2003 cinematic acid trip called The Singing Detective that scores some originality points but loses just as many for its confusing approach to a rather simple premise.
Robert Downey Jr. plays Dan Dark, a writer who is suffering from a very serious skin disease that has him looking like a burn victim. The author is re-working the first book he ever wrote in his head, a 1950's detective tale centered around a murdered prostitute. As Dark lies in his hospital bed, he begins to hallucinate about his disease, the book, his childhood, and his marriage. These hallucinations manifest themselves in the form of elaborate musical numbers, characters from the book visiting Dark in his hospital room, and intimate looks at how his childhood and marriage are connected to this book, which he is trying to work into a screenplay, which apparently has gone missing.
The screenplay is based on a BBC television series created by Dennis Potter, who was also the screenwriter for the 1981 Steve Martin musical Pennies from Heaven, where the actors lip-synched to original 1930's recordings and the same gimmick is employed here with some great music from the 1950's, but Potter really let this one get away from him, with Downey's character jumping from hospital bed to nightclub stage to becoming the central character in his novel at an absolutely exhausting pace. The supporting characters are also moving from the hospital to the novel to the middle of Dan Dark's brain. What we have here is an author trying to decipher the meaning of his life, an outrageous variation on films like 8 1/2 and All that Jazz that utilize extreme theatricality in order to glam up the kind of story we've seen many times before.
It was no surprise to learn that this film was directed by actor Keith Gordon, who played teenage Joe Gideon in All that Jazz. Clearly, Gordon was paying attention to what Bob Fosse was doing on the set of that film because there's a real Fosse influence in the look of the film and the staging of the musical numbers which are seamlessly woven into the narrative. Unfortunately, keeping track of said narrative gets tiresome pretty quickly.
Robert Downey Jr's unhinged performance in the starring role is a big plus and he does have a strong cast behind him including Robin Wright as his wife, Jeremy Northam, Adrien Brody and Jon Polito as characters from the book, and Saul Rubinek, Alfre Woodard and an unrecognizable Mel Gibson as hospital personnel, but the frantic direction and exhausting story eventually weigh this one down.