British Film Institute - London Film Festival

Film

What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases

Search cinema listings

Browse cinemas A-Z

Search 20,000 reviews

 

The Singing Detective (2003)

Director: Keith Gordon

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

The first thing that hits you is Dan Dark's festered, red-raw, blistering head. We're going to be spending quite some time in that head, and it's not an easy place to be. Dark, a two-bit pulp writer, has been hospitalised with crippling psoriasis, although there's a hint that it might be psychosomatic. Certainly Dan's paranoid hallucinations aren't helping. Perhaps hospital shrink Dr Gibbon can stem the stream of rancour, bile and R&B oldies pouring out of his contaminated consciousness. Hard to imagine how strange this must look to anyone unfamiliar with Dennis Potter's work. To those who experienced 415 minutes' worth of the 1986 BBC series, on the other hand, it won't seem strange enough. Potter Americanised the material, but inevitably the chief difference between the film and the TV series is length. Truncated and abbreviated, this Singing Detective is all skin and bone; Dark's remission is too quick; the script's recourse to flashback therapy all too quack. Similarly, Dark's kitsch noir fantasies lack mystery; the signature lip-synch song 'n' dance routines feel rote and lifeless. Against all that, Downey is remarkable as Dark, and his producer, Gibson, is surprisingly engaging as the shrink. To their credit, the makers haven't diluted Potter's misogynist diatribe. Indeed, the film is in some ways a harsher, bleaker, artier curio than the original. But it only works in fits and starts.

Author: TCh

Time Out Film Guide


  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields





Top Stories

The essential guide to the London Film Festival

The essential guide to the London Film Festival

Get the inside track on the all the films and events you'll want to catch at the Times BFI 52nd London Film Festival

Terence Davies: interview

Terence Davies: interview

Wally Hammond talks to visionary British director Terence Davies about his deeply personal and long-awaited new documentary ‘Of Time and the City’

A Bond a day: No. 10 'The Spy Who Loved Me'

A Bond a day: No. 10 'The Spy Who Loved Me'

Time Out revisits the 21 Bond movies day by day to celebrate the release of 'Quantum of Solace'

W.

W.

Read our early review of Oliver Stone's George W Bush biopic, 'W.', playing at this year's London Film Festival

Ten friendly ghost movies

Ten friendly ghost movies

To celebrate the release of 'Ghost Town' in which Ricky Gervais plays a New York dentist who can see dead people, Time Out counts down ten great friendly ghost movies.