Dan Dark is a detective-story writer who has suffered since childhood from psoriatic arthorpathy, a degenerative disease of the skin and bones. In Keith Gordon's film based on Dennis Potter's popular British television miniseries
In the miniseries, Dark was portrayed by Michael Gambon (
David DiCerto (Catholic News Service) calls it an "unevenly engaging, at times morally abrasive, genre-defying cocktail." He cautions viewers about "a particularly raunchy sex scene," but concludes that the film "closes on a hopeful note. This glimmer of redemption imbues the narrative with allegorical import, reminding viewers that there is no heart so scarred by personal pain that it can not be made clean by the balm of love."
But Movieguide says, "The movie's slightly moral, redemptive ending cannot overcome the movie's humanist outlook on personal trauma, or its strong foul language, explicit sex scenes, and very gross images of the hero's terrible skin disease."