Film Review: Vanilla Sky (2001)

While most Hollywood remakes in past decades can be described as "pointless", remakes of non-Hollywood films can be justified by allowing American audiences to enjoy good screen stories without having to read subtitles and, more importantly, bringing Hollywood studios more money than the authors of the original could ever dream of. Vanilla Sky, the Hollywood adaptation of the highly regarded Spanish science fiction thriller Open Your Eyes, did just that, but whether it was a good film was a completely different matter.

The protagonist, played by Tom Cruise, is David Aames, the owner of a large publishing company in New York City. The plot begins when he, wearing a prosthetic mask, is being questioned by forensic psychologist Dr. Curtis McCabe (played by Kurt Russell). He explains the series of frightening and confusing events that led him there. A short time ago, he was living a dream; after inheriting the company from his father, he left the management to the directors while indulging in a hedonistic playboy lifestyle himself. One night, his best friend introduces him to the beautiful young woman Sofia Serrano (played by Penelope Cruz). The two of them spend the night together, but this doesn't sit well with Julia Gianni (played by Cameron Diaz), David's former girlfriend who has turned into an obsessive stalker. When she offers him a ride in her car, David accepts, not knowing that she has some dark intentions and that it would be the start of a series of confusing and macabre events that would make him question his grasp of reality.

Viewers' enjoyment of Vanilla Sky would depend on whether they had watched Open Your Eyes or not. Writer and director Cameron Crowe remained extremely faithful to Alejandro Amenábar's original, and in this particular case, this led to a film that looks like an unimaginative copy, even with a much larger budget. A lot of the budget was spent on special effects, but even more on the cast, including Tom Cruise, one of the largest Hollywood stars at the time and one of the producers. Inevitable comparisons with Eduardo Noriega, who played his counterpart in Open Your Eyes, make Cruise look too "posh" and too Hollywood-like, and the actor's vanity also made the disfigurement of his character, which is an important part of the plot, less severe than in the Spanish original. The rest of the cast is mostly unremarkable, including Penelope Cruz who repeats her role from Amenábar's film. The only good acting performance comes from Cameron Diaz who plays one of the darkest characters of her career. Crowe, to his credit, tries to make his film different from Open Your Eyes in at least one detail. The film is full of pop and rock classic songs which fill almost any scene, but often without any relevance to the plot. This typically Hollywood brand of soundtrack makes a more perceptive audience lose the necessary suspension of disbelief, while younger audiences are going to be baffled. Vanilla Sky, thanks to Cruise's unquestionable star power and good PR, got good results at the box office, but the critics weren't enthusiastic. Although more than watchable and at times entertaining, Vanilla Sky, like most Hollywood remakes, represents a disappointment.

RATING: 5/10 (++)

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