Simone (2002 film)

Simone (stylized as S1M0NE) is a 2002 American satirical science fiction film written, produced and directed by Andrew Niccol. The film stars Al Pacino, Catherine Keener, Evan Rachel Wood, Rachel Roberts, Jay Mohr and Winona Ryder. The story follows a fading director who creates a virtual actress to star in his films and the attempts he makes to keep her non-presence a secret as she becomes more famous. Simone garnered mixed reviews from critics, grossing $19.6 million worldwide against its $10 million budget.
When Nicola Anders, the star of a new film by disillusioned, out-of-favor director Viktor Taransky, refuses to finish the film and contractually requires her image to not be used in the film without risking a lawsuit, Taransky is forced to find an actress to replace her and re-shoot scenes from the film.
Instead of hiring another actress, Taransky experiments with a new computer program that he inherits from acquaintance Hank Aleno. It enables the creation of a computer-generated woman that he can easily animate to play the film's central character. Taransky names his virtual actor "Simone", a name derived from the computer program's title, Simulation One. Seamlessly incorporated into the film, Simone gives a fantastic performance, precisely controlled by Taransky. The film is a huge success, but the studio and world grow confused about Simone, and are eager to find out who she is.
Taransky initially claims that Simone is a recluse and requests that her privacy be respected, but that merely intensifies media demands for her to appear. Taransky decides that he will reveal the secret of her non-existence after her second starring motion picture. To satisfy demand, he executes a number of progressively ambitious stunts that rely on misdirection and cinematic special effects. Eventually, the ruse escalates to simulated remote live interviews.
Two determined tabloid reporters discover that Taransky used out-of-date stock photography as the background during an interview, and they blackmail him into providing Simone for a live appearance. He arranges for her to perform a song at a stadium event, appearing in a cloud of smoke and using flawless holographic technology. The perception of being in-person is reinforced with real-time visualization on the stadium's monitors. Simone becomes even more famous, simultaneously becoming a double winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress, tied with herself.
Although initially happy that his hoax was successful, Viktor grows tired of Simone constantly overshadowing him in the press. So he decides to purposefully make her third film bad. Thus, Simone's next film, I Am Pig, is her "directorial debut", and a tasteless treatment about zoophilia intended to disgust audiences. Not only does it fail to achieve the desired effect of audience alienation, it also serves to foster her credibility as a risk-taking, fearless and avant-garde artist.
Taransky's subsequent attempts to discredit Simone by having her drink, smoke and curse at public appearances, and use politically incorrect statements backfire when the press instead begins to see her as refreshingly honest. As a last resort, Taransky decides to completely dispose of Simone by using a computer virus to erase her, dumping the hard drive and floppy disks into a steamer trunk, burying the trunk at sea, and announcing to the press that she has died of a rare virus that she contracted on her Goodwill Tour of the Third World. During the funeral, the police interrupt, open the coffin and find only a cardboard cutout of Simone. Viktor is arrested and shown a security camera video that recorded him loading the steamer trunk onto his yacht.
After being charged with her murder, Taransky admits that Simone is not a person but merely a computer program. The chest containing the computer data is retrieved from the ocean, but it is empty. Taransky's daughter Lainey and ex-wife Elaine enter his studio to help him try to restore Simone. They find Taransky's virus source disk (Plague) and apply an anti-virus program to eradicate the computer virus. They restore Simone and have her appear on national television holding up a newspaper headline with her obituary, along with a story that her death was a hoax. Elaine and Taransky reunite, but Simone and Taransky create a "public relationship". They even have a virtual baby as a publicity stunt.
Like Andrew Niccol's predecessor Gattaca, Simone deals with themes of the problematic aspects of technological advances being used to attempt to attain perfection. Unlike the former, however, Simone was Niccol's first attempt at a comedic satire with lighter moments and over-the-top drama. Niccol's first attempt at non-satire had been the earlier and more successful The Truman Show.
Pruitt Taylor Vince and Jason Schwartzman were cast as obese tabloid investigator Max Sayer and his shady-looking but peculiarly childlike assistant Milton, respectively. Rebecca Romijn was later cast in the role of Faith, Viktor's secretary, who is so obsessed with Simone that she begins dressing like Simone, dying her hair like Simone, and trying to have sex with Viktor so that she can hear him call her "Simone". These side actors built up much of the comedy surrounding the bizarre cultural phenomenon surrounding Simone.
Footage of character Holly Golightly from Breakfast At Tiffany's was obtained from Paramount Studios to be used in the film for part of the basis of the Simone character, while scenic footage used for Simone's "remote interview" backgrounds was obtained from Getty Images. Stylized elements that are present throughout the film and its credits include the use of the numeral 1 in place of the letter "I", and the numeral 0 in place of the letter "O". The style occurs for the duration of the film, including for all cast and crew names. Principal photography was by Edward Lachman, while the entirety of the production was made in California, using the Getty stock footage to fill in for locations such as Egypt's Great Pyramids.
Simone features a cover of "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" by Mary J. Blige, which Simone sings via hologram during a concert scene, and which plays during the closing credits.
Carter Burwell composed the film's score, which was released on CD.
The film shows how the fake is produced using the chroma key technique. A post-credits sequence shows Viktor creating fake footage of Simone in a supermarket, which one of her pursuers sees and believes it to be real.
The film opened at number 9 at the North American box-office, grossing $3,813,463 in its opening weekend. The film grossed $19,576,023 worldwide.
Simone received mixed reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 50% approval rating, based on 161 reviews, with an average rating of 5.8/10. The site's consensus reads: "The satire in S1m0ne lacks bite, and the plot isn't believable enough to feel relevant." Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 49, based on 38 reviews, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times was critical of Niccol wasting his premise by giving it a broad appeal with "sitcom simplicity", and his cast with a narrow direction for their characters, saying, "He wants to edge it in the direction of a Hollywood comedy, but the satire is not sharp enough and the characters, including the ex-wife, are too routine."
The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw wrote, "It's reasonable material, but there are no real plot twists or unexpected implications; it all just rolls out easily in a Hollywood that director Niccol makes appear so unreal as to be an easy target."
Marc Savlov of The Austin Chronicle said, "What really irked me about Simone was that it stank of the very thing it appeared to be mocking: it's a big-budget, commercial film taking potshots at big-budget, commercial filmmaking (as well as overripe, over-earnest indies), and although it strives constantly for a sense of knowing, winking irony, the only thing ironic about it is how much it resembles its supposed target."
Elvis Mitchell of The New York Times said, "The writer-director Mr. Niccol is satirizing the kinds of dazzling empties he himself has made. [Mr. Niccol is] fascinated with surfaces—the films he's been involved with (he wrote The Truman Show and wrote and directed Gattaca) are a mix of populism and deconstruction. His newest effort, Simone, goes beyond postmodern to post-entertainment—it's tepid and vapid."