Susan Granger's review of "The Singing Detective" (Paramount Classics)
Based on Dennis Potter's popular seven-hour BBC mini-series (1986), this quirky, intriguing story revolves around cranky Dan Dark (Robert Downey Jr.), a mystery writer who is suffering from such a severe skin condition that he's confined to a hospital bed, unable to move and feeling desperately - and understandably - sorry for himself.
In his disordered mind, episodes from the manuscript of his story, called "The Singing Detective," intermingle with painful childhood memories, as he imagines himself as a character in his own pulp novel. A kindly bald, bespectacled psychiatrist (Mel Gibson, who is also a producer of the film) helps him sort out his grotesque hallucinations in a Freudian manner.
First, there's Dan himself, a private eye/lounge singer. That explains the musical numbers. Then there's his estranged wife (Robin Wright Penn) who is trying to cheat on him in an episode evocative of his real-life memories of his unhappy mother's (Carla Gugino) illicit affair. There's the thug, First Hood (Adrien Brody), who's far better than Second Hood (Jon Polito). And Katie Holmes scores as luscious Nurse Mills, who dons latex gloves to lubricate Dan with thick cream.
While he too often flounders with the narrative, director Keith Gordon pulls no punches with Downey's graphic make-up. Dan Dark refers to himself as "a human pizza"; indeed, that's what he looks like. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "The Singing Detective" is an ambitious if not totally realized 7. Of course, it's got great buzz from the National Psoriasis Foundation for revealing a disease that affects more than five million Americans, including Art Garfunkel, John Updike and Jerry Mathers, making them, as Dan Dark says, "a prisoner inside their own skin."
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