Vanilla Sky (2001)

 Directed by:  Cameron Crowe    

Written By: Alejandro Amenábar & Mateo Gil (film "Abre Los Ojos") and Cameron Crowe (Screenplay) 

Cast:  Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Penelope Cruz, Jason Lee

Plot:  A middle-class average everyday everyman   pretentious and vain magazine heir lives the “dream” until crazy women, bad face days, and varying states of actual/fake dreams alter his “dream” life… whether the dreams are real or are just dreams as he’s sleeping because its hard to tell if he’s dreaming his dream life or dreaming about dreaming or… never mind.

Review:  I could not help but basically loathe much about this movie’s first act.  It appeared to be a romantic comedy sans any conflict, just a yuppie whose toughest trial is not letting Cameron Diaz know that he wants Penelope Cruz (difficult).  However, once the second act takes off with a face-changing event (pun intended), the happy dreamy vision alters its course towards a darker, slightly more interesting dreamy vision about life and scifi conspiracies.

Tom Cruise takes the lead role in stride with his Jerry Maguire cohort Cameron Crowe, and has probably never acted more annoying.  The prose that comes out of his mouth here almost convinced me to quit altogether and watch Legend (less annoying, but still).  The pain generally decreases as the film goes on, especially with Penelope Cruz as the earthy love interest whose ease on the eyes make the film more bearable.  However she is also to blame, with lines like “I’ll tell you in another life, when we are both cats,” which is ridiculous-cute, except Tom Cruise steals it and vomits it later (NOOOO!).  Cameron Diaz actually shines as a very fine fling who brings out surprise in her love craze scene.

Why did you make me do "Knight & Day"?!  TECH SUPPORT!

I remember upon release there was much ado about what really happens, as various interpretations bring different possibilities for psychological states of the main character.  I also remember that I was basically just starting High School, and having just watched it a mature 10 years later, realized that this entire hullabaloo is for naught.  You can take certain things away at first, but overall the result of the plot is fairly clear to me.  Maybe this is a case of “mainstream enigmatism” (BAM, Edward Felt Ph.D., just made that up!); a large budget film with large budget stars acting like concentration of the masses is key to their enlightenment.  Perhaps it was a film truly difficult to breakdown a decade ago, but I can’t imagine its very tough to decipher in this day and age, possibly due to more thought-provoking films like it. Maybe its positive overall, as feelings of belonging and intelligence can arrive through the mind-work completed in understanding the story.

It isn’t exactly the most clear film anyway, or simple for that matter, with surprisingly complex characters.  The almost unjustly pretentious nature is slightly bothersome, but also attractive and beautiful (in visuals too; club scene anyone?).  The “cover” of a Spanish Film, as Crowe likes to call it, Vanilla Sky brings engaging mystery to annoying romantic comedy cliches, with mixed but entertaining results.

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[Jake]

That second picture is what Katie Holmes has to wake up to every morning ...