I finally saw a film I’ve been wanting to see for a long time, the independent 2006 film Special. Special is one in a long history of superhero movies, of which I seem to have covered a lot of recently. Special is the story of a man who joins a drug trial and begins having delusions that he is a superhero as a result.
As originality goes, this plot has been done a thousand times. Our hero has wants and dreams that suddenly become reality and the question is always there, is this reality or are they just crazy. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Harvey, Bunny Lake is Missing, Almost an Angel, Total Recall, Contact, the list of films that have approached this concept is a long one. However what is interesting about all of these is the ever nagging question at the back of everyone’s mind, is this happening or is it all a delusion? I would say that Total Recall did this best by not revealing the answer. A more recent example would be Inception. Other films choose to leave the audience guessing until the end and then there is a reveal and cue the credits! It’s a sloppier ending but it usually gives a happier ending than a more unsettling cliffhanger. Special however hurts itself right out of the starting gate by making it clear that our “hero” Les is delusional.
We start with Les being accepted into a drug trial for Special, a drug that makes you…better? What the drug is actually for is not made clear. What is made clear is that Les has a crappy life and is a 30 some year old comic book nerd in a crappy job with low self-esteem. Whether he has any preexisting psychological conditions or not we don’t know so let’s assume he’s just an average guy, which is a pretty sorry state of affairs for the human race now that I think about it. When his powers first manifest he is watching TV and begins to levitate. He doesn’t notice at first as it comes as naturally as breathing to him. Wow, that’s pretty cool, I wonder what else he can do! He goes to the drug trial doctor to show off his progress from the drug only to treat the viewer to an alternate view of Les lying on the floor in the doctor’s office thinking that he is showing the doctor he can fly. This movie goes out of its way to prove to the viewer that Les is just crazy which gets rid of any suspense or tension that would have been built up otherwise.
As his doctor begins explaining to him his adverse reaction to the drug he discovers he has telepathy and has an alternate thought conversation with the doctor further convincing him he has superpowers. From here on the superhero story is merely a tool with which to tell the story of a deeply disturbed individual who has been completely detached from reality and had constructed a world around him full of self-fulfilling prophecies and conspiracies that all point to him being a superhero. From that point on it loses the charm of something like Kickass where the characters spend their time fighting crime and living a double life. Les takes on his superhero persona completely, getting noticed by the police immediately and terrifying the people around him.
The most interesting part of this movie was the way it was filmed, that is showing the world as it is perceived by Les. For most of the movie, we get to see him run through walls, levitate, make cars disappear, and read minds. As I said earlier, we are shown at the very beginning that all this is just his perception of reality and is not real. This shifts the focus of the movie away from him being a superhero to the plot of the pharmaceutical company and how their experimental drug ruined his life without him noticing. But except for a few scenes that show us he is delusional, the rest of the film is shown from his perspective complete with blocks of his memory erases, hearing voices, and showing his believed superpowers.
At the heart of this film is a split in what kind of a story they wanted to tell. Is it a superhero movie with the reveal being he has no powers, or is it a drama about a man whose life is ruined by an experimental drug? This independent film was made around the time when superhero movies were hitting the big time. What makes this film interesting in that it seems to have been right at the beginning of the big push for in modern superhero movies to go for a more realistic approach. I interpret this as the original inspiration for films like Kickass where normal people become costumed vigilantes blending the lines between heroism and sociopathic behavior. Special was the guinea pig for this genre and it had plenty of flaws. But I give it credit for transforming the superhero genre into the more thought out plots and characters we get today.
The movies that generally get remembered are the ones that get it right the first time like 2001: A Space Odyssey, and then everyone copies them hoping to achieve the same wild success. Others like Special, don’t quite get it right but are important because of the new ideas they present that are experimented with by others and manipulated to the point that great movies come out of it. This film isn’t for everyone, but if you have any interest in the modern superhero genre you should check this out.
Movies Referenced:
2010-Inception
2010-Kickass
2006-Special
1997-Contact
1990-Almost an Angel
1990-Total Recall
1968-2001: A Space Odyssey
1965-Bunny Lake is Missing
1950-Harvey
1947-The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
