Some amusing moments, but overall a flawed piece of work

Rating: Null/10 (25 December 2001)

After watching Amenabar's "Abre Los Ojos," I can see why an American director would be interested in playing with the ideas in that film. However, my overall impression of Crowe's "Vanilla Sky" is that it is--while somewhat entertaining--in the end not completely satisfying. First off, I had problems with the way this Spanish film played in an American setting. At its heart, I believe "Abre Los Ojos/Vanilla Sky" is a deeply sexist film. It is about the "femme fatal", the "evil woman" coming back to reek havoc and revenge in the life of a man who slighted her. It is about men having power over women and women being victims. Fine. I can deal with that. However, with the actors chosen and in the less machismo-oriented (than Spain) American setting, I feel like all of the characters are too self-assured, self-responsible and strong for any of this to happen. For example, I never really believe that Cameron Diaz is needy enough to go to such lengths to hurt Tom Cruise's character. Likewise, I never really see Tom Cruise as a "selfish jerk" (a key premise for the film to work); he just seems like a nice guy victimized by one bad choice. In "Abre Los Ojos", the whole "femme fetal" premise works better for me. In addition, I found other actor choices in "Vanilla Sky" to be miscast or perhaps not written well enough. For example, Kurt Russell as the psychiatrist was just terrible, in my opinion. I mean, at the end of the film, we're led to believe he was some kind of "missing father figure" to Cruise, but all the while he is dealing with Cruise, he can't stop bringing the focus of the conversation onto him, his own "issues." This is the "perfect father?" a psychiatrist? I don't get it. And what is up with movie portrayals of psychiatrists anyway? There is still a terrible stereotyping that does a great disservice to modern mental health providers. Likewise, Jason Lee just did not work for me as Tom Cruise's "buddy." I didn't feel the connection between them...and I can't stop seeing Jason Lee as a skater dude or one of Kevin Smith's sidekicks. Penelope Cruz was better, less annoyingly "girlish" than she was in "Abre Los Ojos", but it was still hard for me to understand why Cruise's character was so attracted to her initially. And, as I already mentioned with Diaz, her self-assurance made it hard for me to see her as the "slighted woman." Finally, I felt like, as with many of Crowe's films, there was an underlying arrogance and that the film was really about Crowe himself, not about the characters portrayed. This first comes across in Crowe's very self-conscious use of "cool" electronica-oriented and indy rock favorites such as Radiohead and Jeff Buckley. Yes, Crowe has "cool" musical taste and he wants you to know it. In addition, lines like "My favorite Beatle used to be Paul, then it was John." "I always liked George myself." seemed odd to me coming out of Russell and Cruise's mouths. In fact, all of the lines about music and art that came out of Cruise's mouth just sounded like they were coming from Crowe's mouth to me. One more incident: The flashback to the Dylan album cover also seemed to be more about Crowe than Cruise's character to me. I mean, Cruise's character is only supposed to be 33 and he would not have even been born when that album came out. And, I don't know how intentional this was, but Cruise does look a lot like the pudgy Crowe with that "mask" on his face. Coincidence? Perhaps not. Anyway, I thought "Vanilla Sky" was more interesting and well-done than "Abre Los Ojos", but it is still an ultimately flawed film. Not a complete waste, but could have been better.