pseudo spoilers within?

Rating: 10/10 (15 March 2005)

There is a lot left to interpretation here, but there are also a great number of very direct metaphors: Hollywood has a literal "little man behind the curtain". The main characters find a literal key sitting next to them in a theater while the main point is being driven home (that point being, "yes, we all know that a movie is a fictional recording of events, but it will still sock you in the mouth!") The key opens up a literal Pandora's box that unleashes the side of Hollywood that drives you mad, where the main character's old decisions come back to haunt her. What I love about the movie, other than its depth, is that the traditional-feeling first half is the dream and the nightmare-like second half is the reality. After the start credits, we literally see a first person perspective of a character laying their head on a pillow (followed by a fade to black), and at the half-way mark, she wakes up and the reality-nightmare begins. I interpreted the point to be this: the dream is the early stages of a relationship, where we see ourselves as the innocent one (discovery and amnesia). It is when we learn more about ourselves and others that we wake up and see that we are really corrupt and self-serving.