A Scanner Darkly (2006)

The United States has lost the war on drugs. Substance D, a powerful drug that causes bizarre hallucinations, has swept the country. Approximately 20% of the total population is addicted. In response, the government has developed an invasive, high-tech surveillance system and a network of undercover officers and informants. Bob Arctor is one of these undercover agents, assigned to immerse himself in the drug’s underworld and infiltrate up the supply chain. Arctor has a vision of being in his house with a wife and two children in Anaheim, California; today he has two drug-addicted, layabout housemates: Luckman and Barris. The three spend time taking D and having complex, possibly paranoiac examinations of their experiences.

At the police station, Arctor maintains privacy by wearing a “scramble suit” that constantly changes every aspect of his appearance and voice; he is known only by the code name “Fred.” Arctor’s senior officer, “Hank”, and all other undercover officers, also wear scramble suits, protecting their identities even from each other. Since going undercover, Arctor himself has become addicted to Substance D, and buys from Donna, who Arctor hopes to purchase large enough quantities of D from so that she is forced to introduce him to her own supplier. They have a tense, at times caring romantic relationship, but she rebuffs his physical advances.