Vanilla Sky (Dir. Cameron Crowe, 2001)

I always supposed that Vanilla Sky was a science fiction film. But I watched it again last night, and while the movie ends with a science fiction plot, I have to ask, is that the reality of the movie? Because the movie could have all been in David’s (played by Tom Cruise) head. In fact, the last words of the movie suggest this is merely a dream. So how do we know if it is a lucid dream in death state or a dream of a disturbed man? The science fiction ending reveals (spoiler) that David has died, his body was cryogenically frozen, and that the movie we saw was a lucid dream in his death state. Now he has the choice to “wake up” and face the new world of the future or to stay in his lucid nightmare. He of course, chooses to wake up.

Now, the fact that reality has bent and blurred many times in the head of a clearly unstable character leads me to suspect this ending. Couldn’t one of the other, darker paths, actually be the reality? If David did end up killing a woman, more importantly, killing the woman of his dreams, as the plot before the final revealing plot explains, then what if this lucid dream explanation is really his mind pushing his guilt back into his subconscious?

The movie is told solely from the point of view of this unreliable narrator, David. And we do get glimpses of his disturbed nature (otherwise this movie would hardly be worth watching). We don’t know what level of existence David is operating on, but we do know that he has psychological issues. So what if this movie instead of death is the dream/ nightmare/ mind of a man in the psychiatric ward? This character is clearly not to be trusted.

I think we so easily believe the science fiction ending because it neatly packages the disturbed reality of David and absolves his guilt. He died. He did not kill anyone. He may or may not have been in love. So it is easy to believe again that he is a good guy, not the monster we saw before. But we know that David hates that monster, and so badly wants us to see him as a good guy. That is why is suspect that this is not a science fiction film, but a psychological thriller along the lines of Fight Club.

It is possible that Abre los Ojos by Almodovar is more clearly science fiction, though I have not seen that movie. Vanilla Sky standing alone, however, is more interesting to me as a portrait of a disturbed killer than as a dead man’s dream. So I favor the better movie, the non- science fiction one. Either one, of course, could be correct. And maybe that is why people like the movie.

Stay tuned for a review of Dune, which is also, not really a science fiction film…