Review of Vanilla Sky (2001) by Hannah M — 09 Sep 2012

After a day or two of watching pretty terrible movies, I then got... this. Sometimes a movie resonates with something deep, deep inside you and you can't quite figure out what exactly it's hitting or why, but it just... fills up your soul. It's very hard to explain the experience I had watching this film.

The film floats from one genre to another. I was never sure whether I was watching a serious relational drama, a sci-fi adventure, an experimental art piece, a murder mystery, a romance, a psychological thriller... and yet somehow it never feels disjointed. The story is fascinating, the dialogue beautifully written, and the visuals of this movie are mind-blowingly gorgeous.

I read an article once that said that the part of our brain which experiences the deepest pleasure is not really connected to the language center, which is why we have so much difficulty expressing the things that touch us the most. We find words that come close, we find words that suffice, but nothing really communicates it fully. And I'm going to use that excuse for why this review is so hard to write. It's the first movie I've seen since Scott Pilgrim that I have no problem giving 5 stars to after a single viewing.