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Vanilla Sky (2001)

Vanilla Sky may be the most pleasant ruse perpetrated on the American public since Eyes Wide Shut, which is ironic because they are essentially the same con. Tom Cruise starring in a film, opposite his real life romantic interest, from an acclaimed director, based upon an unusual work that no one in the United States (by and large) has even heard of, and passed off as a romantic thriller in its advertising. The con, of course, is that once the unsuspecting public gets in the theater they are given something completely unexpected, disturbing and dreamlike. The only real difference, I believe, is that audiences will exit Vanilla Sky feeling like they had watched a movie that worked, whereas Eyes Wide Shut left its audiences impotent and unfulfilled (and no doubt intentionally so).

Although there are a myriad of things to talk about in Cameron (Say Anything..., Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous) Crowe's new film, most of it is best left unsaid. Vanilla Sky, I believe, only works if the ruse is intact - audience members too much in the know will wait impatiently for plot twists of increasing weirdness to emerge, for the best stuff coming towards the end. A stray sentence in a fellow internet critic's review ("I never knew it was a BLANK film...") had me distracted 4/5 of the way through the movie, waiting for the secret to be revealed. It came at the very end, and whilst satisfying, I realized that I had been unduly distracted by my foreknowledge when I should have been enjoying the ride. So the less known, the better. If you're not afraid to be taken on a strange journey, I recommend Vanilla Sky highly.

With the plot so thoroughly off limits for the entirety of this review, one is only left with the potentially nonsensical ranting of someone who has just seen a fabulous cover of something unique. A smidgeon of explanation: Cameron Crowe, who as we all know by now began his career as a journalist for Rolling Stone, has constantly been obsessed by how his movies relate to music, and vice-versa. Say Anything... was defined by its use of "In Your Eyes," the definitive serenade via jukebox, Singles was designed to be an album, each song pertaining to a section of the film, and of course Almost Famous is music's ultimate love note, a tell-all biography of seventies rock music as told by its best friend. Vanilla Sky is Cameron Crowe's "cover" of the Spanish film Open Your Eyes - the same tune, different personality. Like Guns N Roses' "Live and Let Die" or Tori Amos's "'97 Bonnie and Clyde," he has succeeded admirably. I have not seen (or heard) Open Your Eyes, but there is no denying that whatever the source Crowe's Vanilla Sky is his own, inextricably linked to his own pantheon.

But it is also a wholly different entity, and is composed of imagery (courtesy of cinematographer John Toll) never before seen in Crowe's films - omnipresent is the feeling of living a dream of one's own life, reality and the off-kilter perception thereof hopelessly intertwined, magic in every frame. Is the sky blue or mixed with vanilla? Are our friends more than friends and are our enemies a fantasy from a Disney film? Every frame seems laced with deeper influence, moments of stories long since imprinted on our memories, but whose names are just out of our tongue's reach, and images intimately familiar but long ago cast aside as meaningless posters and album covers. A facial prosthetic is a disturbing false friend, not what we think it is but just a mask at the end of the day, and the hopeless dream of Tom Cruise looking good no matter what physically manifested grievance God has against him.

Tom Cruise does indeed look good in this film, and it may go down as his best performance once the parallels between this and Eyes Wide Shut are noted, then ignored. Though both are dreamlike journeys of self-discovery, love, jealousy and obsession, from a performance angle the two are night and day. Eyes Wide Shut may be a triumph of sorts for director Stanley Kubrick (and ex-wife Nicole Kidman), but Cruise's performance therein has never seemed anything but mannered. Posturing masqueraded as a performance, and while that was most certainly have been what Kubrick wanted - an unreal performance to mirror the lack of reality around his character - it finally left audiences feeling unconnected to Cruise's character. Here, Cruise has an unnatural ease within himself, almost as if he is portraying his own life had it only taken a slightly different direction. He is still the dreamboat, still the ladies man, still rich as hell, and perhaps these obvious comparisons to his actual life enabled him to embody this man in any situation more effectively. Both of Cruises characters in the films in question are faced with starkly eccentric alterations in their status quo - in Vanilla Sky, though, every surreal touch is grounded in the reality of his reactions. His performance, his very self is real no matter what he experiences. It may be his most accomplished work to date, and I will be very surprised if he is not remembered come Oscar time.

But I have said too much. I only hope that my loose flow of words will intrigue those who have not yet decided to see Vanilla Sky, and make a certain sense to those who have. If otherwise, I can only flagellate myself so much before noting that even this fantastic film is not without its flaws. Writing-wise, it breaks quite simply every rule in the book, failing to set up properly the most influential, important plot twists, and pacing the film at a thoroughly unusual, though dreamlike clip. The critically-acclaimed Mulholland Drive has similar problems - the random imagery and plot transitions can either alienate or intrigue. To some this is refreshing, others will have the same problems with Vanilla Sky as they have with Drive, A.I., Donnie Darko and Waking Life, and perhaps justifiably so. It is as I told my parents, "Vanilla Sky was incredibly good. You would HATE it."

And finally, Vanilla Sky is also noteworthy as a film I may never want to see again. So earth shattering is its pathway, so thorough is its ending, that to go through the whole thing once more would seem like an exercise in redundancy. Message received, Cameron, loud and clear. I looked at the skies in a slightly different way upon leaving the theater - but one can only have a dream so many times before even the most inspiring transition loses its drive. How long, after all, can one live a dream before it becomes reality? Or worse, a nightmare?

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