Too good to be true

Rating: Null/10 (22 January 2002)

SEMI-SPOILERS
This movie is rather like an ingenious and convoluted (or, at least, convoluted) episode of "The Twilight Zone." Nothing terribly original, but it is extremely well-executed. Very conveniently, just about everything one might complain of can be taken as part of the grand scheme. Is Cameron Crowe, with his over-fondness for old rock music, putting too much of it on the soundtrack, and making his hero's life seem like a sentimental fantasy? Ah, but his hero's life IS a sentimental fantasy.
After a number of movies like "Mulholland Dr." that basically just screw with our heads and then leave us on our own to figure it out, "Vanilla Sky" has a very coherent explanation at the end. Unfortunately, this means that although you may not leave the theater in a semi-annoyed state, you may well leave with a feeling of "So what?"
"Vanilla Sky" really only starts getting interesting if we assume that the mind-f**k is open-ended, and that the explanation we are given at the end is actually yet another layer of what is really going on. (Of course, all such movies leave themselves open to the interpretation that the entire plot is an illusion.) There are a number of clues that this is the case, most of which can be brought under the umbrella of the statement "This is all too good to be true." When you start thinking along these lines, it then becomes rather interesting to go back and reevaluate the characters that are presented at the end as the silent friend, the frightened father figure, the loyal employee, and the benevolent dwarves. And the words "Open your eyes." Too good, indeed. . .