Review of The Eye (2008) by Chads. — 01 Feb 2008

There's no reason why Sydney(Jessica Alba) should be blurry. A disciplined filmmaker would understand that only the violinist's POV shots have an intellectual basis for being out of focus. "The Eye" is out of focus, but so, too, was Oxide & Danny Pang's "Gin Gwai"(the original 2002 Hong Kong/Singapore production), in elucidating with clarity as to how the recovering patient could be the caretaker of the donor's visual field.

Sydney received the woman's corneas, not her brain. How the heck do eyes(taken out of context from its neurological system) remember the past and predict the future? Although the film's science tends to be on the myopic side, "The Eye" isn't lazy in creating sympathy for Sydney, who seems genuinely oblivious to her glamour.

She's not modest; she's a naif, in her understanding of how men are. After a lifetime in the dark, everything(and everyone) is beautiful to Sydney. During their jaunt across the Mexican border, Sydney never asks Dr.

Faulkner(Alessandro Nivola) if her actual face(the face she's unaware of) is the motivating factor for his sudden eagerness to help track down the donor. Sydney attributes Dr. Faulkner's change of heart due to his waning skepticism towards supernatural occurences.

Thanks to a "Rescue from Gilligan's Island"-like ending, Sydney never learns how to be vain. The friends we meet at her "welcome home" party are a collection of voices to Sydney, not faces.

Because "The Eye" borrows its climax from a bad 1978 made-for-television movie, Sydney never learns the cold-blooded art of social climbing.