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DVD: Making sense of 'Vanilla Sky'
By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic
© St. Petersburg Times
published May 23, 2002
Vanilla Sky (special edition)
Few films are as eagerly ambiguous as Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky, a remake of the Spanish puzzler Abre los Ojos (Open Your Eyes). Crowe became infatuated with Alejandro Amenabar's film, duplicating it almost scene by scene, yet amplifying the confusion of witnessing someone else's dreamscape.
Crowe was wading into deeper waters than he had ever attempted as a filmmaker, using existential themes, deception and time-shuffling structure, defying the simplicity and honesty of Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous. Being intentionally vague isn't Crowe's style, but Vanilla Sky was a baffling verification of his talent.
Tom Cruise parlayed his image as life's prohibitive favorite into the conflicted role of David Aames, a winner taking all from anyone who offers. David's cushy existence gets disrupted by professional pressures, a jealously occasional lover (Cameron Diaz) and a new infatuation (Penelope Cruz). Someone winds up dead (maybe), David is accused of murder (maybe), and the whole affair turns out to be the dream it first appeared to be. Maybe.
Crowe's commentary on an alternate DVD track suggests he hasn't quite put his finger on it, either:
"It's a story, a puzzle, a nightmare, a lucid dream, a psychedelic pop song, a movie to argue over, and most of all, a movie that extends an invitation. Wherever you want to meet it, it will meet you there."
Crowe isn't always so Zen during the commentary, shared with his wife, musician Nancy Wilson, and cameos by their young sons. ("Whassat?" asks a toddler about the screen Crowe's watching. "Oh, that's a scene about the sweet and sour of life, hon," he replies.) This is a casual gathering, with Wilson playfully adding guitar strokes to Crowe's descriptions or the couple telephoning a friend, a bit player trimmed from the movie, just to apologize.
The filmmaker also drops a few vital clues about the reality of Vanilla Sky that may have been missed by dazed and confused moviegoers, like a registration sticker on David's car dated Feb. 30, 2001. Think about that for a second and decide what's going on.
"Not a shot would go unplanned, not an image wasted," Crowe says. "The goal was a movie filled with clues and signposts, kind of like the cover of Sgt. Pepper's (Lonely Hearts Club Band). Every time you look at it, you might see something different."
Crowe argues well about the film's connections to the more conventional styles of Howard Hawks and Crowe's late mentor Billy Wilder, especially by interpreting Cruise's portrayal. Cruise's best performance, however, is on a short featurette titled Hitting It Hard, focusing on Vanilla Sky's international publicity tour.
He's fun to watch, rolling his eyes at questions attempting to match the film's intelligence that come out sounding dumb. The actor's off-screen relationship with Cruz was just becoming public knowledge and an unspoken pressure added to the timetables and time zones. At the end of Vanilla Sky, we're not as envious of David Aames. By the end of the DVD's documentary, it doesn't seem quite as cool to be Tom Cruise.
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