The Singing Detective

There are at least 2 versions of this film. One stars Michael Gambon, who I know from a detective series called Maigret my dad wanted us to watch. Unfortunately, the way he described certain organizational aspects of the French justice system led me to believe it would rife with corruption, so I spent the entire first episode suggesting Maigret was planting evidence and engaging in other unsavory behaviors. We switched to Foyle's War after that, which I liked much more.

This isn't that version of The Singing Detective, this is the one starring Robert Downey Jr. I am very curious to see Gambon's version, because I really doubt the first 10 minutes would include a hallucination where the hospital dances to some upbeat tune before starting an orgy.

Anyway, Downey plays Dan Dark, an author of trash that doesn't sell, as he puts it. He's in the hospital, afflicted with psioratic arthropathy so bad he can't move on his own. He's in an extremely bad mood, but I think that would be true whether he was in the hospital or not. He's writing a story in his head, or perhaps a screenplay, called the Singing Detective, even though he insists he wrote the screenplay years before. The movie shifts frequently. Sometimes we're in the hospital with Dan, as he interacts with his wife Nicola (Robin Wright), a Dr. Gibbon (Mel Gibson), and a caring nurse he's attracted to (Katie Holmes), which is unfortunate because attraction leads to embarrassment, which leads to profane outbursts.

There are also flashbacks to his childhood during his conversations with Gibbon, Dan's hallucinations about what his wife is up to (involving a likely nonexistent movie producer), and frequent jumps into the story Dan's writing. The lines between them blur as the movie progresses, most notably as Nicola appears as a cold-hearted temptress in the story, and the two murderous hoods from the story (Adrien Brody and Jon Polito) start showing up everywhere. First in his flashbacks, then in the hospital. What's more, they're as confused by that as Dan.

As the movie went on, I had a harder and harder time figuring out what was real. Mostly this meant I was more wary of Nicola than I probably should have been. I kept telling myself that she wasn't really planning to swindle Dan out of the rights to his screenplay, that was just his insecurity and hateful attitude towards women driving hallucinations. Which is probably why he was writing a noir story; they're full of deceitful women batting their eyes to dope some guy into doing their bidding.

The ending was a little curious. Not sure which part died there, and it's a little too pat of a solution. But he likes dramatics, so maybe the only way he can change is through some massively dramatic "death" sequence. I don't know if psioratic arthropathy works like the film says it does, but it's a nice metaphor for his situation. His fists are clenched, he can't move his arms much, so he tends to keep them crossed in front of his chest. Defensive posture, don't come near. And his skin's extremely sensitive, any contact hurts. He's an open nerve, the slightest touch sets him off.

Actually, the character I was most interested in was Gibbon, because it took me a second to recognize it was Mel Gibson. He's so different from all the roles I typically associate Gibson with. Take the silly parts of Martin Riggs, the childlike stuff, but remove all the self-destructive acts, and ramp up his compassion. That's Gibbon. He's goofy, but clever and caring. He works around Dark's defenses gradually, then comes up with the way to get Dan to open up. He could almost be one of those villains that pretends to be the kindly grandpa type, then turns out to be a ruthless, calculating bastard, except he mostly is the kindly grandpa.