A beautiful, soulful, thoughtful labour of love from Crowe and Cruise

Rating: 10/10 (29 July 2002)

I decided to review this movie here on IMDB only after having read tons of other user comments, which are notoriously split (just like the "official" critics' are) on a fifty-fifty ratio: "This movie is awesome!!" ... "No, this movie is awful!!", and so on.
It surely is a love-it-or-hate-it picture, and the film-makers, best buddies Cameron Crowe and Tom Cruise, have obviously always been fully aware of that.
I consider myself very much among those who love it.
I'm Italian, so I saw Abre Los Ojos (which was co-produced with Italian mini-major Lucky Red) long before I saw Vanilla Sky. I love Abre Los Ojos as well, but I enjoyed Vanilla Sky - lack of plot originality aside, natch - much more.
Vanilla Sky, being a Cameron Crowe movie, has all the deeply felt research of the lead character's soul that Abre Los Ojos - which is gripping and genial but rather cold - doesn't have.
I ached all the time for David (he's kind of a spoiled jerk, sure, but in his soul and mind are stirring, even before the accident, a thousand diverse feelings, and a refreshing confusion takes hold of him when he's in Sofia's apartment on that first - and last, actually - night they spent together).
On the contrary, I can't say I felt the same pain for César, who is an arrogant brat before, during and after the accident (perhaps it has to do with the fact that the Spanish lead character César is a 25-year-old, as was star Eduardo Noriega at the time, and therefore is much younger than 33-year-old David Aames, and even more so than star Tom Cruise, who was a 38-year-old when he shot Vanilla Sky).
That said, I saw Vanilla Sky more than once in the theater (bringing with me, each time, some very carefully selected, open-minded friend: they all loved it). Now I have seen it again on DVD.
Well, each and every time I found myself glued to my seat, even though I knew the story from the very beginning. I was simply mesmerized: this movie is so dense and thoughtful; I will never grew tired of it!
The credit here goes, in my opinion, mainly to the Herculean efforts of Tom Cruise, who has been my favorite actor since his wonderful turn in Born On The Fourth Of July, and as a matter of fact I think that David Aames shares more than a bit of rage, pain, desperation and bewilderment with Cruise's memorable Ron Kovic character, and even with his equally memorable Frank T.J. Mackey character from Magnolia.
Those, for me, are the ideal roles where Cruise can totally express his dashing persona and his powerful on-screen generosity (so I'm patiently waiting for September 27, when Minority Report and his John Anderton will finally grace the Italian theaters), far better than playing the sleepwalking, muzzled Bill Harford he had to play (forcing himself, in his own words) while enduring the slow agony of Eyes Wide Shut.

I can't help to admire how much he's grown (as an extremely accomplished, skilled and soulful thespian) since his beefcake teenage idol days.

I surely disagree with those who say he's overacted and/or has merely played himself here, cockiness and mugging included. Are you kidding? The first third of the movie HAD to show the very shallowness of David Aames: the cockiness and the mugging were vital for the entire following story development!
As for the "Tom Cruise merely plays himself" issue, I'd like to end this review with a quote from the great, late director Billy Wilder (it's taken from "Conversations with Wilder", the acclaimed 2000 book by Cameron Crowe): "He [Tom Cruise] is a thinking actor. He makes it look effortless. For example, Rain Man. It took several years for everyone to realize that the roles coul have been switched. That is a movie I would have liked to have seen - the crazy guy is the good-looking one. The ease in which he handles the hardest roles ... Tom Cruise, he's like Cary Grant. He makes the hard things look simple. On film, Cary Grant could walk into the room and say "Tennis anyone?" like no one else. You don't value the skill until you see a less skilled actor try the same thing. It's pure gold".
What can I add? It says everything. Those audiences who disliked Vanilla Sky might try again: it'll probably surprise them. It doesn't end to surprise me, either.