Unnecessarily convoluted and tedious romantic thriller

Rating: 6/10 (25 October 2015)

Director Cameron Crowe takes a wild and overly complex turn in this mind-bending thriller that demonstrates the complexity and elements of the human mind that many struggle to understand. Tom Cruise stars as David Aimes, a wealthy, inner city publisher and best friend of Brian Shelby (played by Jason Lee), who is in relationship with beautiful blonde Julie (played by Cameron Diaz), but seems to be in love with a Latino woman named Sofia (played by Penelope Cruz). When David is involved in a devastating car accident with Julie that leaves his face horribly disfigured, he begins struggling to tell between dream and reality. Kurt Russell plays psychology doctor McCabe who has David incarcerated and interrogated him on the events leading up to the fateful car wreck. Mixing elements of science-fiction, mystery, and romance, this film is a remake of the 1997 Spanish film Open Your Eyes, which also stars Penelope Cruz and follows the same story structure.
As interesting as the plot and the premise are, I really wanted to like this movie. While I am not saying I hated this movie, there were some major flaws that made this one hard to enjoy. The film sets a promising start with a solid introduction of the characters of Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Jason Lee, and Penelope Cruz. Then there is the intense car crash scene that leaves Tom Cruise's character with a horrendous facial disfigurement. From there on, the plot takes a whole bunch of of twists and turns that are far too confusing for not only the audience to understand, but the confusing for the film itself. This film tries so hard to be interesting but is completely unaware of the direction its trying to take, and it fails to give any sort of hints to what happens and instead leaves the audience consisting speculating. The plot feels like Cameron Crowe took the script and did some experimenting with it but got everything all mixed up. Throughout the story, there some questions left unanswered and scenes that serve no purpose. The cast's performances are decent, but perhaps nothing too impressive.
Vanilla Sky has an intriguing plot and a premise. Overall, this is not a film for everyone and only for those who are fans of Cameron Crowe's works. While it's not totally bad, it would have been better if it the plot was more even and had a better and more structured direction.