5 out of 5

Director: David Cronenberg

I wish I’d seen this movie when I was younger.  Naked Lunch was one of those books that I half-stumbled through as a coolster angsty kid, but it never really affected me in the way that the satirists like Heller and Vonnegut did.  Cronenberg was also on my cool list, but his filmed struggles of self-mutation did connect with my teen brain, and hold a different level of symbolism to me now.  ‘Naked Lunch’ the film is not a ‘direct’ translation of the book, which still stands as rather impossible, but it does what the best book-to-films do: instead of going for a word-for-word, the scripter or director figures out what the themes are and then presents them as appropriate for a new medium.  In that sense, Cronenberg was a perfect match for ‘Lunch,’ and his spinning of Burroughs’ vignetted study on addiction and control and truth into a contemplation on creation and the toll it takes is stunning, visually and psychologically.  From Croney’s now first half of his career’s focus on body horror, even in his classics Videodrome and the Fly, where the change is an integral part of the plot, there’s always a leap when things suddenly get weird.  ‘Naked Lunch’, for all its surrealism, is probably the most sensible use of puppetry and effects in the director’s career, the metaphor he often strives to achieve allowable in the loose narrative brought about by lead character Bill Lee’s drug addiction.  Summarizing the plot is as difficult with the movie as the book, but there is a followable story of Bill’s coming to terms with his Self and his motivations through various addictions.  There wouldn’t be blab enough to dissect possible themes at play, but of note: all of the performances are pitch perfect, but Weller, apparently a Burroughs’ fan, balances the Lee character’s ambivalence and confidence perfectly, never making him so sloppy of a drug addict that we can’t see the human.  And regular Croney cinematographer Peter Suschitzky gives every seen a rich, believable feeling with this amazing green, sickly lighting that knocks the socks off any color filter.  And Chris Walas’ creature effects are just astounding through and through, a blessing that CGI wasn’t really an option at this point.  If chance provides to listen to Cronenberg and Weller’s commentary, it’s recommended, usefully providing insight into David’s interpretation of the scenes (from Croney himself) as well as Burroughs’ probable intentions with characters and concepts (from Weller).