Vanilla Sky-Review
Vanilla Sky is a must see re-make of the Spanish film, “Obre Los Ojos” (
Open Your Eyes). It would definitely open your
Eyes to explore the different dimensions of what you see as reality. For a film so complex and deep in thought, it was executed extremely well. t cleverly begins with the phrase, “open your eyes” which is such a significant saying in relation to this movie. We need to open our eyes, wake up to
reality for it is extremely hard to tell what exactly that is times as seen through the perspective of the main character David Aames ( Tom Cruise). The story is centered around him and his a character is perfect in delivering a powerful viewpoint that reality really is in the eyes of the beholder. This guy had it made- good looks, money, everything. To any other person, his life would be the ultimate reality but the
movie is very complex in showing how reality is very deceiving. David has a friend that he keeps around for the sole purpose of sex and she eventually goes overboard and attempts suicide with David inside. Cameron Diaz playing Julia delivers a great performance, portraying this psychotic, delusional, madly in love girl. The car crash is where this mascare begins. At this point the movie gets a bit confusing tying in many points. It jumps form scene to scene having David talking to a psychiatrist while in jail, to flash backs of what exactly
happened to get him there. Before the accident, he fell in love with Sophia ( Penelope Cruz). She’s lively, she’s free, everything he wants. She is what makes him happy and that is apparent. Every time she is around whether in a
dream or not, there is cheery music playing and bright, lively scenery. Eventually David begins seeing Julia in Sophia and everything gets a bit confusing from then on. Random
things start happening and there are many things that foreshadow that everything that happened is his memory is nothing more than a dream. There are things in this movie directing you in many directions but in the end it all comes together. It is very fast paced with ideas flowing here and there. The whole movie leaves the audience wondering about the ultimate outcome. It jumps back and forth from him being under arrest and what happened in the past until finally it is revealed that he apparently killed his lover, Sophia. His life is upside down, nothing makes sense. There are many scenes of him just running and going crazy. The movie does a great job in showing how strong the subconscious could really be. In the end, all is revealed, now everything that happened after a certain point was all constructed. The dream should have been flawless. But his subconscious turned it into a nightmare. He should have had the perfect life with Sophia yet the guilt, the anger, the resentment he had for Julia corrupted his dream. How he got Sophia and Julia mixed up was brilliant and added to the dream-like state this movie projects. In the end everything just comes together and you realise something that you didn’t quite understand I the beginning. You realise that this movie has a stet-up of a dreamy, nightmarish way to it. You realise that the skies just seem surreal and that many things just wouldn’t’ make sense in reality but then in a dream, it would make perfect sense. His dream formulated himself taking what he thought as ideals from popular cultural means. The psychiatrist that he was talking to in the entire movie was what he thought of as a father figure, modeled after Atticus Finch, love was how he though it would be like through a movie. The realization of what is reality can be a very dramatic theme and this movie did a great job doing so. Having loads of information and flashbacks coming back to him as he goes up the elevator to a roof top where he needs to go back to the real would, the real reality, or his dream reality. The lighting, the music, the camera shots all are so surreal but subtle in doing so. The vanilla sky creates an essence and it all ties in with the whole concept of this movie. Reality really depends on the perception of the person experiencing it. The ending very much alludes to the very beginning. He jumps off the building..heart is beating and then those words: “open your eyes”
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