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Director Cameron Crowe is a master in the same vein as Scorsese and Tarantino when it comes to selecting suitable music for his engaging, character-driven, and personal tales, almost always void of cynicism. Jerry Maguire (1997) and Almost Famous (2000) are joys to behold because of their feel-good fresh auras, along with the booming musical overtones at every turn. Unfortunately for Crowe, Vanilla Sky's soundtrack is more noticeable than it should be. Nothing really shines for the former Contributing Editor of Rolling Stone magazine as every filmmaking discipline is seemingly muted in his quest to express David Aames' (Tom Cruise) struggle for the soul. The familiar sounds of Radiohead, Bob Dylan, R.E.M. etc. are more apparent than ever and attempts at iconic scenes, such as our protagonist running through the emptiness of Times Square, can be viewed as a high-budget modern music video with a bona fide A-lister and not methods of illustrating Aames' apparent isolation. Vanilla Sky is simply a confusing and unsatisfying mess.
Crowe has a few directorial flourishes - the pan over New York as the bore commences is one of the scarce highlights, but he ultimately seems out of his depth in regards to handling the plot, a remake of Alejandro Amenabar's Abre Los Ojos. Aames' psyche is part of some hallucinatory lapse of reason, a hyperreality of sorts, as he unintentionally has his conduct converted from a streetwise, hot and loaded Jack the Lad to an emotional wreck devoid of contentment. The rest of the plot is tricky to follow as firstly, Crowe does not seem to even bother explaining some psychological realm that cannot be accurately clarified, and secondly, commitment and total concentration needs to be dedicated throughout the overlong 135 minute running time to even construct your own ideas, which is something you will not care less about attempting by the disappointing finale twist. The whole prospect of taking this effort seriously is about as attractive as voluntarily watching The Matrix trilogy three times in quick succession - you know the nods to Baudrillard's theories are present but you appreciate the mindfuck the films convey alone without venturing into the realms of understanding. Crowe fails to conquer both of these traits as you never feel aware of exactly what point he is trying to make or even if he knows himself. The same problem occurs with genre definition - Paramount heavily marketed the picture as a romance but Crowe flits between sci-fi, noir, romance and more with the blink of an eye. It seems as if all Crowe understands about this film is the Monet-"Vanilla Sky" connection some trying-to-be-clever Spanish screenwriter included in the script.
Beauty is certainly the achieved objective for casting director Gail Levin. Penelope Cruz reprises her role from the Spanish version but the actress is more wooden here than an antique dresser. Cameron Diaz is always a delight to watch and the Californian and Kurt Russell (as David's psychiatrist) steal the show. Tom Cruise went through the uneasy phase here that many actors dabble in but then swiftly retreat from when realisation sets in that they are straying away from their successful comfort zone. In fact, like Crowe, Mr Box-Office should steer clear of experimental yarns and stick to wholesome tales which put smiles on faces and butts in seats [although he won considerable praise for his performance in the decidedly experimental Magnolia (1999) - Rich]. The sofa-jumping scientologist should leave unsophisticated disarrays of scripts to poison other people's filmographies. The acting as a whole though is bearable, and like the overall film, producers should have been clearer at the start of the project as to what direction and meaning the piece should follow to have exercised more artistic achievement.
The extras
The commentary with Crowe and his wife Nancy Wilson is a very standard affair - as chatty as one expects with conservative praise dished out accordingly. The Tom Cruise conversation on this track is a waste of time as he only talks for approximately ten minutes about nothing specific or interesting. "Hitting it Hard" and "Prelude to a Dream" are decent enough featurettes. The former follows the main cast on the publicity tour around the world and the latter is a brief behind the scenes look - the features added together total about fifteen minutes. An Entertainment Tonight Paul McCartney interview is extremely short at about sixty seconds and the Leftfield music video is not anything to write home about unless one likes/tolerates that kind of material. A decent photo gallery and two trailers round off the package.
The summary
Crowe, Cruise, Cruz and Cameron will confuse you during, and days after viewing this rather complicated and unfortunate cerebral attempt at personal brain chaos.
