Review of Vanilla Sky (2001) by Dawdlingpoet — 28 Nov 2021

This is undoubtedly a bizarre watch but the real issue I found with it, is that the main character, David Aames, is really not likeable. Pretty much at all. I admit I'm not a big fan of Tom Cruise, which is partly why I hadn't seen this film until now. I heard that its partly about dreams and fantasy, the surreal and that aspect of it interested me, as I'm interested in quirky watches but this didn't really appeal to me. It felt like a pretty big ego trip for Cruise, with the main female characters being his characters love interests, there being various scenes of moderate to heavy flirtation going on and the rest of it.

At first the film seemed relatively basic and I wondered what the fuss had been about it, as I knew it was the kind of film that people tend to want to re-watch, to see if they can understand things better, spot things earlier on, when re-watching it but it didn't seem too complicated at first, although that did change later on. I think that, for me, it was the cliches that jarred a bit too much for my liking. This is perhaps more a film for men than women? I don't know but I wasn't especially keen on it, although it is certainly quirky and bizarre, something a little different, although not without cliches. Overall, I suppose I'd say this is an average film. I think there are some interesting themes at play - showing your true identity etc. and I was intrigued a bit to try and discover more about what really happened, where the flashbacks present relate to different events but not everything is explained (its perhaps a bit David Lynch-esque) and I didn't feel I greatly enjoyed it, although it is a curious watch. Also it contains some good songs on the soundtrack, so thats a plus. Other people may well enjoy it more than I did but thats my thoughts on it. I don't think I would specifically recommend it as such but its not an entirely awful film, its just perhaps not quite as good as I feel it could have been.