VANILLA SKY TRAILER MOVIE

election, that suggested things weren’t as great as they seemed. Yet here was a film, made prior to 9/11, though certainly on the heels of the 2000 U.S. And, in pop culture, there was a sense that we were headed to a very interesting place with movies, television, and music. Crime was down compared to the start of the decade. What a statement to make.Īt the end of 1999 and the start of 2000, there was a sense (true or not) that we were living in an optimistic time. He chooses to wake up, because ultimately, a real-life, even one spent alone, is better than a dream where one is surrounded by fake people. In the end, David is given the option of resetting his lucid dream or waking up, even though 150 years have passed in the real world. As such, again, this dream becomes a nightmare. However, his subconscious seems to realize the people who surround David aren’t real. He gets the second chance he always wanted with the so-called love of his life Sofia, and he stays best friends with Brian. Without anyone, life is a nightmare for David.ĭavid’s lucid dream is supposed to be perfect, and for a while, it is. This dream means existence with other people.

He’s living the dream, as he tells his best friend Brian at one point early in the film. He charms his way through most of his life, spending night after night with different women and then just moving on, doing his own thing. In it, David is alone in the world, which for him is not something he desires. This dream at the beginning of the film, of course, is more of a nightmare. It connects directly with the opening dream sequence, as well as the film’s final moment, in order to say something about artificial comfort in modern America. The lucid dream revelation in the final stretch of Vanilla Sky is more than just a plot device. And I could go on and on about why I believe those two statements are true, but I want to focus on something I’ve thought a lot about over the past two decades. That’s a shame, because this is one of Cameron Crowe’s best films, and it has one of Tom Cruise’s finest performances.

VANILLA SKY TRAILER MOVIE

Just do the usual Google search for the movie and see that it currently has a 42% on Rotten Tomatoes.Įven now, as its 20th anniversary approaches, there’s not much talk about Vanilla Sky. Heck, even critics at the time were lukewarm toward it.

As compared to the box office of other movies released that month (the prime example being the first Lord of the Rings film), it seems audiences wanted to escape far more than introspective science fiction. When it premiered in theaters in 2001, just three months after 9/11, I don’t think audiences necessarily wanted what the film had. Writer-director Cameron Crowe’s remake of Alejandro Amenabar’s Open Your Eyes is such a time capsule of a film, representing New York (itself representing America, in as much as a remake of a Spanish film will ought to do) at a time just before 9/11. Though it is never specified in the film, Vanilla Sky takes place sometime at the turn of the century, either 1999 or 2000. It turns out that David is actually having a nightmare. “ What the hell is going on?” he and the audience must be asking. He continues on, eventually stopping his car in the middle of an empty Times Square. He drives to work, and on the way there, he, and we, begin to realize that the streets aren’t quiet. Tom Cruise plays David Aames, billionaire and owner of a successful publishing company, who wakes up one morning to a quiet New York City. Vanilla Sky is about America losing its grip on reality in favor of a comforting falsehood. At least, that’s how I’ve managed to see it, as I’ve often revisited it over the past 20 years. In late 2001, a film was released that somehow managed to warn us about our current social climate. In my lifetime, two events occurred that helped shape the America in which I now live: 9/11 and the advent of social media. When did this change happen, and where did it come from? Success, usually financial, is still a part of it, but so is this idea of “us versus them.” In time, I believe that Dream has evolved to encapsulate what it means to be a true American. The American Dream was about being a success, usually self-made. Growing up, I heard about the American Dream a lot, not so much from my parents but from media like movies and television.

Vanilla sky trailer