Cameron Crowe's Eyes are Wide Shut

VANILLA SKY (2001)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Originally viewed late December 2001

"Vanilla Sky" is a Cameron Crowe rock n' roll movie trying to be a sophisticated, ambiguous thriller and it is reason enough to conclude that Hollywood is dying. To some it may be dead already but "Vanilla Sky" will not win any new fans of La-La Land. Those who found Cruise's offbeat, artistic endeavors through Kubrick and P.T. Anderson's worlds cumbersome will find his return to such dreamlike territory a lot less than thrilling. Either way, "Vanilla Sky" has compelling material delivered in a perfunctory and unbelievable manner.

Cruise plays David Aames, a rich, hotshot publisher of a "Maxim"-like magazine called "Rise." David is not liked by his business partners who all feel slighted that they did not inherit the magazine from his father. He calls all the shots but hardly seems to care about the business. He has a luxurious apartment with a great view of New York City, a splendid woman friend, Julie Ganni (Cameron Diaz), whom he sleeps with on occasion, lavish parties where a hologram of John Coltrane can impress his guests, and so on. Is he really deserving of such a life or is his life an empty, lonely one? That may all change. The night of his 33rd birthday party, David meets his best friend's new date, Sofia Serrano (Penelope Cruz), and instantly falls in love with her. Sofia is charmed yet unimpressed with David and realizes that Julie (who comes to the party uninvited) is a sad woman in love - "the sad girl with the martini." But Julie gets jealous and begins stalking David. Before you can say "Fatal Attraction," Julie drives off a bridge with David in it. David gets disfigured, Julie dies, he loses his friends, almost loses his acquired business, is suspected of murder, and begins to wonder if everything is real or simply a dream or if he is in a coma. Or perhaps David is simply shut out from reality permanently. Maybe he is dead. By the three-quarter mark of this movie, I could not care less for David or his constant whining.

Based on Alejandro Amenabar's "Abre Los Ojos," "Vanilla Sky" has intriguing ideas lurking beneath a Cameron Crowe movie that is less interested in building its theme of a discovery of one's awakening reality than being an overlong homage to rock n' roll. Yes, this is Crowe at work here but this was not meant to be "Almost Famous" with David Lynch overtones. The tone of the movie is off, wavering uneasily between romantic comedy, a thriller, and a David Lynch nightmare. There are rock songs playing on the soundtrack every few minutes to remind us to stay awake while Cruise wears a mask explaining his past, present and future to a psychiatrist (Kurt Russell). The mask reminds one instantly of Cruise's far superior role in "Eyes Wide Shut." There are twists and turns piled up so often that they made me feel like my leg was merely being pulled from one extreme to the other. "Open your eyes" is the phrase said with great repetition in the film. So why was I so insistent on closing them?

None of this would seem distracting if at least we had a glimmer of sympathy or empathy for David. As played by Cruise, he is a bitter fool with a nice smile who has no inner life - a spoiled rich kid, nothing more. The movie has no degree of subtlety or nuance, even in terms of dialogue. There is no feeling of a change occurring in David because he seems like a cipher from the beginning. He has no inner dimensions to speak of and it was hard to feel sorry for his disfigurement at any moment.

As I said, the dialogue certainly doesn't help matters. One line that had me cringing (and there are many) includes a ludicrous scene in a bar where a disfigured David tries to get the bartender to make eye contact with him. "Look at me, bitch," says David. Not one of Tom Cruise's proudest moments or Crowe's. And the constant referral to Julie as a "f--- buddy" left me wandering my eyes to the nearest exit. I am no admirer of "Jerry Maguire" but I'd rather sit through that again than this garbage.

"Vanilla Sky" is a reference to the clouds in a Monet painting, and thus the basis for a Paul McCartney title track. But it is one putrid, laughably obvious trifle of a movie with Cruise merely going through the motions. With an underwritten role for Diaz, an always smiling Penelope Cruz who steals the movie, a sometimes masked Cruise and a shockingly awful, over-explained finale, I left the theatre in great haste and disgust. Here is a fitting alternative to seeing this movie: close your eyes and take a nap for a couple of hours.