Pretty strange, but entertaining and slickly crafted

Rating: 8/10 (16 December 2001)

Cameron Crowe's (originally Alejandro Amenabar's) Vanilla Sky is a film where reality and dreams (er Nightmares) are blended together into a maddening yet almost refreshing look at one man's trip (that would've been a good explanation) through love, death, and other things in life. This man is played by Tom Cruise who runs half of a magazine business in New York who has a affair lover on the side (Cameron Diaz who isn't that bad in her scenes), but then falls in love one night with another woman (Penelope Cruz) and then the plot unfolds from there. You can try to follow along with where the film is going, but be warned that at some point the film diverges into the stranger, and more surreal, though it's explained at the end. Worthwhile despite it's shortcomings, with actual human characters enriching the atmosphere. Jason Lee and Kurt Russell also star. B+