Ralph Fiennes is the title character, freshly released from a lunatic asylum, who takes residence at a halfway house and attempts to piece together the confusing events that led him to madness. Fiennes plays it in such a completely unexpected way that I actually looked at him with fresh eyes for the first time since Schindler's List … he's all hunched over, mumbling his lines so internally that the film, though in English, actually requires subtitles. As he sorts through his fractured memories, Fiennes literally wanders through them as an invisible observer, watching his past play out before him. The memory scenes and the present-day scenes begin to blur as Spider gets closer to uncovering the truth, the confusion augmented by Miranda Richardson, who initially plays his mother, playing multiple roles in the latter half of the film. Just when you think you've got a grip on the fragmented narrative, the Oedipal overtones take over and you're left not quite sure just what it was that went down. Gabriel Byrne is terrific as Spider's philandering (or is he) father, and as with Fiennes, I was happily surprised to see him in a role that had the kind of meat he deserves, as opposed to, like, Ghost Ship. The "shock" ending struck me a bit like Cronenberg thinking he was making a Shyamalan movie, which he couldn't do if he tried (as he may have here). But the story and performances of Spider are ultimately quite compelling; it's a movie that lingers with you for several days after seeing it. Whether the film is any good, I have no idea … with Cronenberg, that kind of label is pretty irrelevant. As an ingenious exploration of childhood pain, though, Spider has a lot of … um … aw, fuck … bite.
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