Make my sky "Vanilla" anytime, it's much nicer than the gray skies of winter!

Rating: Null/10 (1 January 2003)

"Vanilla Sky" is one of those movies that can easily polarize audiences. It is easy to see how some think it is one of the best they've seen, and it is equally easy to see how some hate it. Other recent films like "Magnolia", "Mulholland Drive", "Fight Club", "Memento", and Donnie Darko" have the same effect on viewers. Regardless of one's leanings, there is no question you have to watch this whole film intently, grasp every nuance, understand every conversation to be able to even discuss it intelligently. I like to view films like this, it is a good mental exercise that most films just don't provide. On the opposite end of the spectrum is a film like "Dumb and Dumber", which happens to be one of my favorites, but one which you can watch very leisurely and just enjoy, like a good piece of creamy fudge!! :-)
CAUTION * SPOILERS follow, you may not want to read further if you have not yet seen "Vanilla Sky", which gets its title from a painting.
David (Tom Cruise) is a 30-something rich guy who seized 51% control of his corporation when both parents died in an accident, loves the ladies and shies away from commitment. During the film he is involved, apparently, with two women, a brunette (Penny Cruz) and a blonde (Cammy Diaz). He also has lucid dreams, sometimes starts having sex with one and finishes with the other. As he awakes his CD radio whispers "wake up", sometimes in the voice of one, sometimes the other. It gets to where we, the audience, as well as David, cannot tell which is dream and which is reality.

Another layer in the story is the psychologist (Kurt Russell) visiting David in his jail cell, David with mask on, the psychologist trying to find out what really happened, was there really a murder. Is the psychologist real, or just part of the dream? We see a crash that apparently kills the blonde and disfigures David. We see him arguing with a panel of surgeons about doing something to stop the headaches. We see him meet a stranger, we find out David had signed up for a "Life Extension" program where they freeze your body and bring back your mind into lucid dreams. The audience can tell by the vanilla-colored sky when David is supposed to be in these dreams.
At the climax, David is given a choice when he calls for "tech support". He has been dreaming lucidly for 150 years, he can continue or he can come out of that state and into reality. He has control, it will become what he imagines (shades of 'What Dreams May Come'), so he jumps off the tall building he is on, as he lands we only see one eye open, and hear "wake up, David" and the film ends.
I may watch it again before I return it to my library, but upon one viewing I find it impossible to precisely reconstruct a narrative. On the one hand, we could assume everything up to David waking up on the street, sleeping off a drinking binge, with the first "vanilla sky" we see, is real, and everything after is a lucid dream. Or, maybe everything between the first, early "wake up" and the last one, is a dream. Or some other combination. While I generally like for films to make sense, and feel that I am able to connect all the points, I don't feel that necessity here. The film was so very well done, just the entertainment of watching the story unfold and the pleasure of thinking about it afterward is worth it.
The DVD is fine, although unspectacular. The "extras" I didn't find particularly interesting, unless you really like to see Cameron Crowe and Tom Cruise "behind the scenes" and during the world premiere in Japan, with all the young Japanese girls acting like 1960 American teenagers seeing the Beetles for the first time.
"Vanilla Sky" - a thinking person's film.