SPIDER

UK/Canada, 2002, 98 minutes, Colour.
Ralph Fiennes, Miranda Richardson, Gabriel Byrne, John Neville, Lynn Redgrave, Bradley Hall.
Directed by David Cronenberg.

Ralph Fiennes shuffles on to the scene, muttering incoherently, and takes up residence in a refuge for men released from mental institutions. What he does is revisit his past, both real and imaginary, jotting memories in hieroglyphics into a notebook. He sees himself as a child with his mother and father, at home, at the pub, seeing his father's infidelity and his mother's patience. The audience is puzzled as to what is really wrong with Spider (his mother's affectionate nickname for him) and the nature of the webs his imagination has spun. It all comes together satisfyingly at the end. Which means that David Cronenberg has given us a quiet but compelling case study.

1. The impact of the portrait of Spider? A psychological case study? The audience observing him, entering into his memories, into his imagination, into his madness?

2. The London settings, the streets and the gasworks, the refuge for the homeless? The pubs, the homes? The contrast between the past and the present? Similarities?

3. The designs of the spider and the brain during the credits, the song? The musical score and atmosphere?

4. The title of the film, the references to spiders and their webs? The nickname for Dennis by his mother? His own webs? And the deadliness of the spider?

5. His arrival in London, the people getting off the train, his shuffling, muttering to himself, getting the address, on the street, finding MrsWilkinson?, going inside, observing, Terrence, listening to his stories, his room, Mrs Wilkinson's attitude, helping him, the bath? Unpacking? His journal and the hieroglyphics? His life in the house, the meals, talking with Terrence, listening to his stories about scorpions and the past? In his room, continually writing?

6. Spider walking the streets, going back to his house, to the pub, to the canal? His sitting and watching? Its effect on him?

7. His journey back into the past, real and imaginary? His continually writing notes? His observing himself as a little boy? The boy in the household, his relationship with his mother and her stories about spiders, her kindness, the meals? His father and the seeming distance, yet his father asking him to look after the house? His observing, going to the pub, his outburst against his father, accusing him of murdering his mother, his attacks on his stepmother? The violence?

8. Bill, plumber, down the pub, at the meals? With his wife, the embrace at the gate, going to have a drink at the pub? Attracted by Yvonne and the girls? Following them, the sexual encounter with Yvonne? Going out of the house, angry, going to the pub, with Yvonne? His wife following him to the pub, looking for him, going to the garden, the shed, Bill killing her, he and Yvonne burying her? Yvonne's callous attitude? Taking over in the house, cooking the meals, talking to Spider, puzzled by him?

9. Spider's mother, a suburban housewife, nice, the meals, with her son, down the pub for a drink? Her search for her husband, victim and murdered?

10. Yvonne, blowsy, with the girls, taking his mother's place? The fact that Miranda Richardson played both roles?

11. The final outburst, Spider wanting to kill Yvonne? The fact that he killed his own mother? The reality about his father, talking with his son, indicating that he was imagining everything about his father's behaviour and his mother's death? His father taking him outside and telling him he had murdered his mother?

12. Was Yvonne Mrs Wilkinson? Her receiving people into the house, looking after Spider? His confronting her in the bedroom?

13. The flashbacks to the asylum, the men, out working on the grounds, the madness of the man saying he was not a Spaniard, with the glass shard and giving it to the supervisor, his putting it in a pattern like a spider's web? The supervisor coming to get him and take him back to the asylum?

14. An insightful character study, psychological case study?