Spinning Man: Em Busca da Verdade

Mystery/thrillers can sometimes put themselves in a bind. They create a 'did he/didn't he' scenario and base their movie around it, but the problem with that is if the answer is one of the options (usually "he didn't") then you don't have a story worthy of a movie, and thus the answer is simple to work out. 'Spinning Man' finds itself in this predicament and takes a unique route to try and escape it. Did it work for me? Not really.

You leave the film with a little bit of a "what was the point?" mentality. The film being quite well made actually covers this up partially, but it's still there lurking at the back of your mind. The film is at its strongest when it is creating psychological parallels with the story that is going on. It's easy to tell the film was based off a book, because it is very well crafted in that sense. The acting from the main three - Guy Pearce, Pierce Brosnan and Minnie Driver - is also very strong and helps carry what could otherwise have been some very clunky dialogue in places.

The film shares a lot of similarities with 'Memento' (and no not just because Pearce is again in the lead role) yet it too often feels like an episode of 'CSI: Crime Scene Investigation'. The pacing is a little lazy in spots which creates this feeling. This is far from must-watch material, but there is still enough here to make for a perfectly passable film.

I will keep my summation brief as you will have either seen it already or read the synopsis. What lies beneath this entire film, is the question of memory. How accurate is it? How reliable is any single person's account, of anything! What is truth? It's reflected in the philosophical teachings and comes into play within the context of a mystery thriller. In addition, what is guilt really? If a large number of people say something is so, does that make it real? Does having a personal philosophy have to match up with one's own actions?

The film raises these and other fascinating questions. I would hope that one would walk away wanting to explore philosophy in more depth. However, for the average popcorn going movie goer wanting their 'thriller' spoon fed to them, they will of course be disappointed.

Those seeking a little more substance will find this satisfying, playing out, exactly as it should.

I loved to see Brosnan as an American homicide detective. The man has been becoming more and more of a genuine actor lately. Magnificently paired with Guy Pearce this time, providing the correct kind and dose of contrast. And maybe for the first time ever, I can state that Minnie Driver feels "right" in her role.

Though similar stories have been covered zillions of times, in the past decades mostly by TV shows like CSI, the focus is on something else here: The difference between reality and the perception of it. A mid-aged man teaching philosophy, one who raises genuine questions on his actual culpabilitiy, functions very well as the central character, more so than you might expect.

A couple of visual tricks helped the film grow on me as well. One was the shot in which we saw the pole to one side of which the poster for the (fake) bunny search was just stapled, whereas on the other side the suspect saw the poster for the missing girl. The other was how the dialogue between the husband and wife was shown, reflecting from two mirrors standing side by side, the couple talking to each other physically whereas the visual trick functioned to reveal they were rather speaking into oblivion in solitude, with their reflections looking the opposite ways. I wonder if this was a homage to a way older scene from the history of cinema, something by Tarkovski maybe, or if the filmmakers came up with the idea on their own.

There was almost nothing "wrong" with the movie. The scenes functioned, tension and mystery built up well enough till the final act. And then...

Well, the film ended in a way that you could expect. That's it.

As a viewer, I felt deprived of a potentially awesome version of that very same finale, which could have been created simply by re-editing certain scenes. Ending such a story with questions hanging in the air is not awkward at all, but there was either some laziness, or some confusion on what emotions to extract from the audiance.

With Pierce of previous "memento" problems in the cast, this could well have become as captivating as Seven. Maybe a false lead was needed to provide some distraction from the main issue.

Wasted opportunity but still worth a watch.

"Spinning Man" is a very intelligent film that draws interesting parallels between a philosophy teacher's search for truth and that of a detective. The performances, particularly by Pierce and Bronson, are excellent. The plot is satisfyingly complex with an ever-tightening noose of circumstantial evidence, but seems a bit contrived and ultimately disappointing with a bit of a deus ex machina ending and a bit of misdirection in the denouement. Production values are adequate, with several parallels involving rodent traps, dependencies and posters for missing pets, although some of the parallels seem a bit spot-on. The picture is gloomy with weather suggesting an impending storm, reflecting the mood of the characters.

The film's narrative evolved in complexity to the point that different paralel narratives, the blending of past and present, identities and versions of the same stories made everything confusing. Some people got that it was very deep because it questioned the reliability and indeed the concept of memory, etc., etc. However a more clear narrative and another, confusing finale would have been desirable