Vanilla Sky
David Aames (Tom Cruise) is a rich playboy who takes his life one day at a time. He has a very loose relationship with Julia Gianni (Cameron Diaz). Life however catches up with him when he falls for a girl named Sofia Serrano (Penelope Cruz) and he also finds out that Julia doesn’t quite feel as casual about things as he does.
Plot
David Aames (Tom Cruise) is a rich playboy who takes his life one day at a time. He has a very loose relationship with Julia Gianni (Cameron Diaz). Life however catches up with him when he falls for a girl named Sofia Serrano (Penelope Cruz) and he also finds out that Julia doesn’t quite feel as casual about things as he does. As life starts to take some strange turns David starts to suspect that all is not quite as it first seems.
Review
I’ve seen a lot of reviews of this film/DVD that make the inevitable comparison to the Spanish film Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes) directed by Alejandro Amenábar, as Vanilla Sky is a remake of that film. As of the time of writing however I have not seen Abre Los Ojos and I am therefore unable to make this comparison and will review the film on it’s own merits.
Vanilla Sky is one of those films where it is difficult to say too much about the plot without potentially ruining the film for those that have not yet seen it. From the opening sequence where David Aames is running through Time Square in New York and there isn’t a soul around I knew that all would not be, as it first seems in the film. The whole film is a merging of dreams and reality and your never really sure which is which.
As the plot unfolds the story seems to become stranger all the time and you can’t afford to lose your concentration for a moment. This is definitely not one of those films that you can easily leave to make a cup of tea and pick up the story when you get back. A lot of reviews I’ve seen give the film low to medium ratings but I personally can’t understand why. Having now watched it twice I was as gripped through the entire second viewing as I was through the first, and could quite happily give it another viewing at some point. As with many films of this kind there were so many visual clues to the ending throughout that I completely failed to notice on the first viewing.
If I have one complaint to make about the film, it’s the over explanation of things at the ending. Don’t get me wrong, I don’ t like films that leave everything out in the open and totally to the viewers imagine (Mullholand Drive for example). However the ending spends so long going through the meaning of everything and tying up all the loose ends, I just started thinking, “OK, I get it, lets move on”.
I’m always a little dubious of films with Tom Cruise in the lead role, he’s been in some great films (Rain Man, Minority Report) but he’s had his fair share of stinkers as well (Mission Impossible 2 ugh!). Vanilla Sky however has a really strong cast, Tom Cruise plays the role of David really well and develops the character from egotistical playboy rich kid, to the desperate man trying to understand his life. There is a lot of chemistry between Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz during the film and I guess this is down to the off set relationship they developed while filming.
Cameron Diaz plays a very convincing role as the rather scary jilted lover. There are also some excellent supporting roles from Kurt Russell, Jason Lee and British “Auf Weidersehen Pet” star Timothy Spall. Jason Lee is excellent as David’s best friend and I personally think that it’s about time he had some more leading roles. The film also has a great soundtrack including the likes of Peter Gabriel, R.E.M and the excellent Radiohead.
Video/Audio
Thankfully the video quality is very good, I say thankfully as this film is a real visual treat and it would be a shame to see it given a sloppy transfer. No worries about that though, the image is sharp the colours are bright and there’s very little defects at all.
As with the video we get a very nice Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. Good usage of the rear channels and the various music tracks used in the film sound great. All dialogue is also crisp and clear.
Extras
The Cameron Crowe commentary is excellent; it’s actually listed as Cameron Crowe and Nancy Wilson (Music). Nancy however doesn’t really say much throughout the commentary but she does however provide the occasional burst of music from the film with her acoustic guitar. Cameron however talks enthusiastically about the film and manages to give lots of information without bogging us down with technical details. He also phones Tom Cruise at one point and they discuss a particular scene in detail during the commentary.
Prelude to a Dream is a short six minute long featurette narrated by Cameron Crowe. It skims briefly over casting, filming and the ideas behind the film. Given that it’s not listed in the extra features menu but is on the main menu before the actual film, you get the idea that they want you to watch it before watching the movie. Hitting it Hard is also on the main menu and is a 10-Minute featurette showing the worldwide press tour that the main cast & crew undertook. What we get is footage from various cities around the world mainly focussed around the locations of the premieres in those cities.
Music, features a 90 odd second interview with Paul McCartney about the song that he wrote for the movie. It also contains the music video for “Afrika shox” by Leftfield/Afrika Bambaataa. There’s a collection of 8 photo galleries that contain on set photos from the movie, many of which are behind the scenes photos. The collection has an audio introduction from the photographer Neal Preston. Finally we have a selection of two trailers for the movie and several screens of text only credits.
All menus on the disk are very simply but effectively animated and the film is broken into 28 chapters. Audio is available in English and French and Subtitles are available in English.
Overall
I really like this film and certainly think it’s one I could return to several times. Since starting to write this review I have gone ahead and ordered Abre Los Ojos Abre so that I can compare the two and I will try and get a review done of that title as soon as possible. After this and “Almost Famous” Cameron Crowe seems to be going from strength to strength and I look forward to his next film.
The DVD itself is reasonably good. While video and audio quality are great the selection of extras are very weak and I suspect as with “Almost Famous” that a new special edition is due out at some point. Lack of extras aside I can’t heartily recommend this DVD.
This page has been read:
4021
times