The Spinning Man (2018)

  As intellectual thrillers go, The Spinning Man is the philosopher’s whodunit.

As Dr Evan Birch teaches his Philosophy of Language class, what we call the truth is not an objective reality but a matter of perception and memory. So, too, the class exam question (a sign pointing down to a chair): Prove this is a chair. If you exempt the simple physical reality of the present chair and require a linguistic proof of its existence, then Detective Molloy can properly build on the denial of the chair’s material reality: “What chair?” The cop and the philosopher both seek proof, with the former’s stakes the higher.

So the eponymous professor Birch spins his philosophic play on reality and language. He spins the truth, any material or objective reality, to protect himself. In the first scene, he ends up helplessly aspin when he can’t distinguish between his imagination and reality. His guilt about improper engagement with a student leads him to believe he killed her. That guilt continues even after Molloy assures him of his innocence. His sexual guilt prevents his accepting his innocence. 

This film didn’t receive the respect it deserves perhaps because it denies us the satisfaction of a pat conclusion. Two mysteries remain hanging at film’s end. The philosopher’s  profession of innocence at the scandal of his previous post is undermined by his present propensity to predatory fantasies. And when does the violence in his engagement with the African American student occur: now or in the event of a year ago, for which she now apologizes in hopes of beginning an affair? Clearly they have different “truths” around that.

The script, performances and moral ambiguity make this thriller an extraordinary work, well worth reconsideration. Rare is the fiction that takes guilt of intention as seriously as guilt of deed. OIn the other hand, given our parlous present state, do we need another reminder of the occupational hazards of thinking?