Mostly Misses The Mark - But The Film Was Oddly Compelling To Me

Rating: Null/10 (11 April 2003)

(Warning: Some Spoilers)
I do not think that this movie accomplished the filmmaker's goal. The whole mystery unraveled in a rather melodramatic and pedantic way at the end. It was bad science fiction (but not as bad as "Return of the Clones"). It is as though the filmmaker thought it was unthinkable for the audience to be left with the impression that the character David Aames (played by Tom Cruise) could possibly have murdered his lover. The movie might have had a lot more impact if the question of what was real and what was dream had been left ambiguous. Tom Cruise had some fine acting moments in the film, but in many ways he merely reprised the emotional outbursts that were so fine in "Fourth of July".
The movie seems to be about a life reformed. I think this is is one of the film's main messages. Witness when the character Sofia says to David during the evening they spend together: "Every passing moment is another chance to turn it all around." But David Aames never does take advantage of that opportunity. His life, a loveless one, essentially ends the next morning. The movie also seems to be about a perfect love realized. But this is only on the surface. It is actually about a love never realized yet acted out in someone's fantasy anyway.
In his fantasy Sofia tells him that he never should have gotten in that car with Julia, his stalker, that fateful morning. That is the opportunity he missed to turn it all around - to resist the temptation to join Julia. Instead he could have moved forward in a reformed way instead of giving way to vanity. The character of Julia, is, I imagine, supposed to represent a mirror to his vanity and the selfish lovelessness of his life.
The movie revolves around one sexually charged but unconsummated night with the only woman one man will ever truely love and the chase to capture and hold the fantasy of that love, which remains unfulfilled. But it is about hope too. When David Aames confronts Sofia in the club and implores her to share her thoughts and feelings about their relationship, she, in my opinion, tortured but compassionately replies, "No I can't. I will tell you about it in another life...when we are both cats." This is the great hope of the movie - that somehow their love transcends this life (or this fantasy). In some way true love never dies and will manifest itself in an afterlife and beyond.