Spider

Official Selection of Cannes Film Festival

Winners

Toronto International Film Festival: Best Canadian Feature Film
Catalonian International Film Festival: Best Director
Flanders International Film Festival: Georges Delerue Prize
Genie Awards: Best Achievement in Direction
San Francisco Film Critics Circle: Best Supporting Actress

Nominations
Catalonian International Film Festival: Best Film
European Film Awards: Screen International Award
Genie Awards:
Best Achievement in Art Direction/Production Design;
Best Achievement in Costume Design
Best Achievement in Overall Sound
Best Achievement in Sound Editing
Best Adapted Screenplay
Golden Satellite Awards: Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

Synopsis

Spider (Ralph Fiennes) is a strange and lonely man. After a long period in a mental institution, he returns to the streets of the East End of London where he grew up. The sights and sounds and the smells of those streets begin to awaken the deeply buried memories of his childhood. At the centre of these memories is the great trauma of losing his mother (Miranda Richardson), A trauma which occurred, he believes, because his plumber father, Bill Cleg, (Gabriel Byrne), murdered her in order to move a prostitute, Yvonne (also Miranda Richardson), into the house in her place.

The half-way house to which Spider is sent when he is released from the institution is run by Mrs. Wilkinson (Lynn Redgrave). A stern woman, Mrs. Wilkinson rules her residents with a good deal of rigor and discipline. This is not an ideal landlady for a man as sensitive and fragile as Spider, and he soon begins to confuse her with her childhood nemesis, Yvonne. Terrence, who lives in the boarding house, is Spider’s lifeline, the one individual who is able to talk to and, on some strange level, understand him. But not even Terrence can save Spider from the spiraling madness into which he seems to be descending as she starts to visit his childhood haunts. Soon Spider’s attempts to sustain his delusional account of his past begin to unravel as he is driven to believe that Mrs. Wilkinson is actually Yvonne- the woman who he believes destroyed his family and was responsible for the death of his mother.

As Spider claws through the falsehoods he has woven around himself, he begins to arrive at the truth about his childhood and about his mother’s death, The truth will take him to the very limits of his faltering sanity.

Production Note

David Cronenberg’s powerful psychological thriller, Spider stars leading British actor, Ralph Fiennes as Spider in the title role, with 10-year-old newcomer Bradley Hall playing Spider as a young boy, The stellar supporting cast includes Miranda Richardson, Gabriel Byrne, Lynn Redgrave and John Neville. Acclaimed novelist Patrick McGrath adapted the screenplay from his own novel.

David Cronenberg says “Spider is an austere psychodrama with a profound human mystery at its heart. It has the feel of Samuel Beckett confronting Sigmund Freud.”

Spider is set in the East End London in the 1960s and 80’s. A deeply disturbed boy, Spider “sees” his father brutally murder his mother and replace her with a prostitute Yvonne. Convinced they plan to murder him next, Spider hatched an insane plan which he carries through to tragic effect. Years later, Spider is released into a halfway house, where he receives little care or attention from the landlady, Mrs. Wilkinson. Spider stops taking his medication and starts revisiting his childhood haunts. His attempts to sustain his delusion account of his past begin to unravel and Spider spirals into fresh madness.


Distribution: Golden Scene Company Limited

Date of release: 3rd July 2003

Category : IIB

Duration : 99 mins

Cinema:

Broadway-Cinematheque / Cine-art

Website: www.spiderthemovie.com