Review: With the Longing of a Fleeting Dream, ‘Vanilla Sky’ is Cameron Crowe and Tom Cruise at Top Form

Have you ever woken up from a dream you couldn’t forget? Have you ever had a dream — of pleasure, of adventure… of love — that you felt so sure was real the world took more than a few moments to snap back into focus upon awakening? Dreams have a way of stirring this in us, frozen images from our brain, clips, feelings, and emotions that we readily accept as real because of the pleasure — unreal as it may be — they give us. But what if it’s a nightmare?

While the scope, and lasting impressions of Cameron Crowe’s 2001 mystery “Vanilla Sky” is much wider, the movie feels like the dream it creates, taking viewers on an unwitting emotional roller coaster ride before arriving at its bizarre, yet simple, conclusion.

A Film that Starts as a Dream

The movie features powerhouse names: Tom Cruise, Penélope Cruz, Jason Lee, Cameron Diaz, Kurt Russell — but blends them together into such an understated arena that we forget the blockbuster movies that lined their past. Cruise plays David Aames, a richboy and CEO of a New York publishing firm that has the world by the bootstraps. He lives in a giant penthouse, has a casual relationship with a beautiful girl, Julia (Cameron Diaz), and a best friend, Brian (Jason Lee) to share the pleasures of his life.

“Vanilla Sky” has possibly one of the most interesting openings of any movie I’ve seen. Upon ‘awakening’ from a dream, Aames leaves his penthouse in his mustang, and drives into the heart of Times Square. But there’s a problem — the entire city is empty. Aames gets out of the car, running, panicked through the empty streets, the bright lights of Times Square an eerie presence when devoid of people. (An interesting note is that Writer/Director Cameron Crowe didn’t fake this shot: he got permission to block of an area of Times Square for several hours for the shot). Aames promptly wakes up from this ‘dream’ heading to his office and thanking his lucky stars the streets are full of people.

Blending Fantasy and Reality

However, the scene is ominous, as is most of the film. The distress from this dream temporarily abates as David goes about his life. He goes to work, he plays racquetball, he sleeps with beautiful Julia — but none of it feels real. Crowe remarks on this with interesting introspection in a near accident David has while driving with friend Brian. “My own death was right in front of me and you know what happened?” Brian asks. “Your life flashed before my eyes.”

The movie starts innocent enough, but then catapults toward tragedy. During David’s 33rd birthday party, he meets the beautiful Sofia (Penélope Cruz, reprising her role from the 1997 Spanish film “Abre Los Ojos,” the inspiration for “Vanilla Sky”), who he falls in love with instantly. She’s lovely, nice, optimistic and enchanting. It is through Sofia that David discovers a mantra that runs through his life, all the way to the end of the movie: “Every passing moment is a chance to turn it all around.” The scenes between the two are well done. Cruz is absolutely splendid, and Cruise manages to exude an unexpected innocence given the dynamic roles he usually plays.

First a Dream, then a Nightmare

However, the movie quickly becomes bizarre. Leaving Sofia’s house the next day, he is approached by jealous Julia, who convinces David to take a ride with her before driving the two of them off a bridge in a suicide attempt. Her rationale: she is in love with David and can’t take the pain of being just another girl. The movie narrates that David’s arm and face were badly broken, causing unbelievable headaches and facial disfiguration. Julia died; maybe David got off lucky, but maybe he did not.

It is in the following scenes that the movie becomes a fantasy, and while it may be fairly easy to deconstruct and explain to non-viewers, this would cause a tremendous disservice. David sees Sofia in real life, his face pained with the knowledge of a loss that runs deeper than his physical injuries: Sofia cannot look at him the same way again. He begins to have dreams, dreams where she is still with him; but in these dreams he always knows she’s gone. He awakes, in pain over a single choice he made which was the wrong one — getting in the car with Julia in the first place.

Tom Cruise in Top Form

A broader problem presents itself, however. “Vanilla Sky” intersperses these scenes with David speaking with a psychologist (Kurt Russell), who is attempting to help him prepare for court. David has been accused of Sofia’s murder, an act that he can’t believe happened, an act that he has, in fact, no memory of.

“Vanilla Sky” is a movie you must watch at least two or three times to have a chance at understanding its complexity. The movie masterfully waltzes in and out of the dream world, causing you to question what in David’s life is real, and what is a mirage. But the real wonder is that the entire cast manages to paint this reality with such splendor, and such emotion, that you feel yourself pulling for David even if you don’t know why. Cruise honestly gives one of the best performances of his career as Aames, causing us to sympathize with a man we initially think we have nothing in common with, but which it turns out we have everything in common with — the human condition.

A Powerful, Emotional Film

Tom Cruise approached Cameron Crowe with the idea for “Vanilla Sky” (named after Claude Monet’s painting, “The Seine at Argenteuil”) after seeing “Abre Los Ojos” by Spanish Director Alejandro Amenábar, and felt the movie needed to be remade for American audiences. Their passion for making the film shows in its every scene, and adds a depth and warmth to the film that was missing from the original. “Vanilla Sky” was the film that “Abre Los Ojos” wanted to be, had it a bigger budget, a bigger intention, and more time allowed for exposition.

“Vanilla Sky” doesn’t rush — it carries us along with it, and by the end question whether the whole thing was a dream, or a figment of our imagination. Some critics cite this as a fault — too many unanswered questions, to many ‘what if’s’ — but it’s not. The movie is not defined by plot, and wisely leaves the final interpretation of the movie’s proceedings up to the viewer. The movie’s next to final scene, involving David, Brian, Sofia, and his psychologist on the roof of a massive skyscraper, pitted against pink and blue “Monet-like skies” offers some answers, but more questions, and is honestly one of the most touching and bittersweet scenes I have seen in any movie to date. It presents the fleeting longing of a dream, the strong emotions of love, loyalty, and loss, and the feeling that David’s life may be ending or it may be just beginning. The movie makes us feel we’re awaking from a dream though we’re not sure we want to. “Vanilla Sky” is a starkly different movie from start to finish; in fact, it might not be the same movie at all.

An Easy Recommend

On balance, “Vanilla Sky” is a perplexing film, made all the more so by powerful acting throughout (in addition to Cruise, Jason Lee does a particularly wonderful job, thoroughly unlike a majority of Kevin Smith productions that made him famous), breathtaking visuals, and a haunting soundtrack featuring songs from Jeff Buckley, Radiohead, Todd Rundgren, Africa Foxx, Sigur Ros, and the wonderfully beautiful yet somber “Elevator Beat” by Nancy Wilson.

“Vanilla Sky” is an easy recommend. Not many movies can take you out of reality so vividly and bring about such unique emotions in their presentation. It’s a movie you experience, and a movie that makes you think. Cruise will surprise you as David Aames — a man who has it all, loses it, but perhaps discovers that all the money and fame in the world can’t replace what matters most. What exactly does matter most? It’s in the eye of the beholder.