Review of Vanilla Sky (2001) by Walter B — 04 Jun 2011

A little mixed about this film. First, the casting is impeccable, except for maybe Tom Cruise. Maybe I'm not used to his arrogant narcissism evident in previous works, and thus I feel like he's a character that can't easily be empathized for.

Cameron Crowe has an impressive oeuvre, directing such original films like "Almost Famous" and "Jerry Maguire". Thus, I still have mixed feelings about this work. He worked two years on a remake of a Spanish film that have a lot of similarities.

The spanish film Abre los ojos (Open Your Eyes), was itself a better film to begin with and also starred Penelope Cruz. The thing is, I wanted to like this film a lot. I think it had some good cinematography and great acting from most of the cast.

It was supposed to be a psychological thriller film (although the spanish version was more of a metaphysical thriller film that was more coherent with its genre), but it is incoherent at times and veers off into different genres.

Maybe it has to do with selecting Cruise to begin with. He's such a great actor, but one of his few weaknesses is channeling his inner anguish to have the audience sympathize with. The main question of the film seems to ask, what is reality? How can we be sure? Those familiar ontological questions have been asked before and covered in much better scope with films like "The Matrix" and "Inception".

The spanish version was a play on words, one which signaled opening the eyes in a metaphysical sense-to be aware of what is going around and of course, the physical act of waking up and being aware. The overall reason this film ultimately fails is more to fault not just Cruise, but Crowe as well.

Crowe is used to directing mainstream American movies in an optimistic fashion. The mood and imagery in this film misses the haunting, dramatic shots that made the spanish version more haunting and ultimately more of an impact.