Right now you're probably thinking fuck, I've seen Vanilla Sky and it wasn't
all that. In fact, it was a pile of shit. Well, let me explain to you why
it's one of the best movies out there, albeit still not on par with the
original film - "Abre les Ojos".
I'm going to assume you've seen the movie, otherwise don't both reading
this, cos I'll just spoil everything for you.
The Cast:
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Tom Cruise....as....David Aames
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Cameron Diaz....as....Julie Gianni
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Penelope Cruz....as....Sophia Serrano
It's directed by Cameron Crowe, the same guy who made the Almost Famous
and Jerry Maguire movies. It has to be said that he doesn't an
excellent job here.
Ok, so you've seen the movie, you're thinking ok David Aames is this New
York publisher slash playboy, who is "fuck buddies" with Julie Gianni. He
then meets and falls in love Sophia, a random spanish woman he meets at his
birthday. He's then in an accident with the jealous Gianni, who drives off a
bridge, killing her and massively dis-figuring Aames. Nice. Aames recounts
his story to the psychiatrist while he's awaiting trial. So far so good.
Then things start to get a little strange. We found out that Aames signed up
for a "Lucid Dream", and when got rejected by Sophia at the club, entered
said dream. The twist being that he's still in the dream, and the
psychiatrist is just a figment of his imagination. Alright.
No. Very much wrong in fact.
And that's the beauty of it. Vanilla Sky has already owned you. And the
evidence was right there for you, in so many places:
The whole movie is just part of one of David Aames' dreams. The whole
episode is part of his fucked up psyche, and we in fact have absolutely no
idea who the hell David Aames is, whether or not "Lucid Dream" is a reality,
or even whether Sophia or Julie Giani even ever existed.
At the end of the day, in David Aames' "real life", he was living a dream.
Then, when he entered his lucid dream, he bought a "real life", the sour and
the sweet, and that's the awesome paradox.
And it doesn't stop there. There are just so many different interpretations
of the movie that you can have, let me give you an example:
The Christian Theory
David dies, and as he does, his life passes before his eyes. However, just
before he finally passes, he is offered the chance to sell his soul to the
devil.
Indications:
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Davis is asked on numerous occasions by the psychiatrist, whether or not he
"signed a contract".
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When we see the woman at Lucid Dream, she has hot sauce behind her.
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David dies at 33, as did Christ.
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David's father wrote the book, entitled "Defending the Kingdom", the
magazine he owns is called "Rise".
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"What if god was one of us" is sang by David as he enters surgery.
And the thing is, you can't, try as you may, disprove that theory.
Anyway back to it. How do we know that everything is a dream? Or that
everything we see in the movie has either happened before, or never has.
Well, let's split it into a) Proof, and b) Clues from the director.
A) Proof
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The opening line of the movie. It's as easy as that. What is the opening
line? "Open Your Eyes", in very obviously, Penelope Cruz's voice. Now, how
the fuck is that ever possible? At that point of the movie, Tom Cruise's
character has never even met her, so how is it possible that he hears her
voice in his dreams?
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Whenever Cruise is in his car, we can pretty clearly see the registration
sticker on the front wind-screen, which reads 02/30/01. How is this
possible, when there are only (at most) 29 days in February?
B) Clues
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In Cameron Diaz's first scene, her phone rings to the song "Row, row, row
your boat". Of course the final line of that song is "life is but a dream".
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When Jason Lee's character goes to the birthday party, his t-shirt says
"fantasy" in sequins.
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David's L.E. patient number on his cryo tank says PL515NT 4R51MS. Obviously
"pleasant dreams".
The Best Soundtrack To A Movie Ever
I'm not just talking about the music being
awesome, even though it was. Radiohead, REM and a load of other awesome
songs makes for pretty great listening. But probably for the first time
ever, the music in this movie tells you the story. If you've only seen the
movie once, then like I said, there's a 99.9% chance that you don't know
what the hell is happening. Which is understandable, because it's a far more
complex plot than the usual Tom Cruise movie.
Some examples:
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When David leaves Sophia's house (the last time
before things start to get really fucked up), the song playing is Jeff
Buckley's "Last Goodbye".
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Bruce Springsteen's "The River" is featured,
one of the lyrics being "is a dream a lie if it don't come true? Or is it
something worse?
Excellent Performances
Cameron Diaz earned an Oscar nomination, and
Tom Cruise could easily have been up for one too. I don't know, I don't have
much else to say on that, I'm not who usually appreciates a movie based on
the performances of it's actors.
To sum up...
Maybe it's just one of those movies, where it
has to be your "cup of tea", it definitely isn't for everyone. Personally,
I'm one for the mind-fuck genre of movies, like Fight Club and
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I just think that the
intelligence of it, makes for a film that should be recognised as brilliant,
no matter what your taste.
