The script is superb, grappling with serious issues with real insight and tenderness, drawing us into the story without ever preaching (indeed, there's hardly any dialog at all!). And Cronenberg directs it beautifully, letting us fall straight into Spider's mind. His approach to flashbacks is fiercely clever and very eerie, playing on the blurring of the imagined, perceived and actual past. Frustratingly, there are two things that keep snapping us out of the "reality" of the story. First, the production design is erratic and overdone; not only does it muddle the period, but every set looks like it was slapped with a fresh coat of drab paint just before the cameras started rolling--artificially dilapidated, with quirky furniture and costumes only a film crew would put together. Admittedly, this adds to the general unsettled atmosphere, but it also keeps us at arm's length. And the same can be said of Fiennes' performance, which is detailed and deeply committed, but it's also Acting! with a capital A and an exclamation point, never a real man who's deeply disturbed. The rest of the cast fares better; Richardson is particularly good. And while the film has disturbing, scary, involving and ultimately deeply sad moments, it never really goes anywhere. Frustrating indeed.