K-SCORE: 9
Writer/Director: Cameron Crowe
Starring: Tom Cruise, Penelope Cruz, Kurt Russell, Tilda Swinton, Cameron Diaz
Spoiler Level: Totally ruining
“incompetent storytelling”
I wasn’t fond of Vanilla Sky when I thought it’s plot revolved around a vain disfigured man going through therapy and coming to grips with the crazy ex-girlfriend that killed himself and ruined his life. Such a plot is not that interesting to begin with and was shoddily crafted. The chronology is bouncing all over the place, the characters aren’t well established and don’t develop nicely, it asks the viewer to make all kinds of assumptions based on character relationships… incompetent storytelling.
“David meets a guy in a bar, in a dream, who, in reality, works for tech support, from a futuristic company that his subconscious has never heard of but his conscious has employed”
So naturally Vanilla Sky’s transition to a plot involving cryosleep and 150 year long lucid dream states is as smooth as butter. It makes total sense. See David meets a guy in a bar, in a dream, who, in reality, works for tech support, from a futuristic company that his subconscious has never heard of but his conscious has employed, and he has to listen to that guy’s advice, and ignore the unexpected visions of his former lovers as well as the therapist filling his dream-mind with nonsense about acrophobia, and take the sensible path of riding an elevator to the top of the dream-construct skyscraper and jump off the roof in order to jolt his conscious mind awake and into a future reality where he’s wealthy, successful, and happy. … Let me be clear about something. I didn’t make that up. That’s literally the given circumstances according to Vanilla Sky’s script. That’s what happens. There’s no ambiguity either. The “wake up” voice at the end cancels out the interpretation that David is just crazy and opted to off himself at the end. According to the fiction, the film really is all a dream.
Drugs. Oh, sorry, I thought you asked how anyone could possibly come up with a plot that absurdly convoluted.
The really amazing thing is that this movie was completed. I’m guessing that the actors didn’t have an entire script in hand when they started filming, otherwise, why would they sign on? Eight-year-olds know the “it’s all a dream” ending is among the most dissatisfying things a writer can do with a story.
I spent awhile trying to come up with some connection between the Monet painting by the same title and what I watched, but couldn’t come up with anything. Something about impressionism? Then I realized when searching for a screencap to accompany this review, that the film had tricked me into thinking about it too abstractly yet again. The vanilla of the sky refers just to the look of the sky when David is about to perform is his totally sensible dream-suicide. Phew, this movie is good.
And am I the only one who thinks Inception should probably have been titled Vanilla Sky 2?