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Mathew Scott

Starring: Tom Cruise, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Jason Lee

Director: Cameron Crowe

Category: IIB

The ingredients for success are there: Cameron Crowe directs Tom Cruise for the first time since Jerry Maguire; Cruise acts opposite his new love, Penelope Cruz; there's a story taken from the intriguing 1997 Spanish thriller Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes); and there's a support cast that boasts the talents of Cameron Diaz, Jason Lee, Kurt Russell, Timothy Spall and Noah Taylor. But Vanilla Sky still manages to get it all wrong.

It starts with a dream sequence - Cruise, as David Aames, running through a deserted New York City. He wakes with a jolt and the same scene is again played out. And this is the first indication that we are being presented with a world where the lines between what is real and what isn't are going to be blurred.

We find Aames has it all - he's fabulously wealthy, attractive and popular. Although Aames has a beautiful woman on the go, he meets the beguiling Sofia (Cruz) at a party held in his honour and is smitten at first sight. That she came in on the arm of his best friend (Lee) seems to matter to no one, least of all Aames who goes about winning her over.

After spending the night in Sofia's apartment - a night made memorable for the passing of such leaden lines as 'I'll see you in the next life, when we are both cats' - Aames leaves but is met outside by his sometime-lover Julie (Diaz). Oddly, he drives off with her and this is when it all starts to go wrong for him. Fuelled by jealousy, Julie drives her car off a bypass, killing herself and disfiguring the once-handsome Aames.

Once his looks are gone, Aames' world is thrown into turmoil. We now find him in prison, wearing a mask and being interrogated by a sympathetic doctor (Russell). Just what has happened since becomes the focus of the rest of the film. The doctor probes, Aames tells his tale. But just how much of this is truth and how much is fiction?

The problem is not so much with the story, but with the telling. Crowe brings a certain grace and style to Vanilla Sky, but there is never any doubt this is Cruise's film. The camera lingers long and hard on its star - but throughout the film, he can only find two gears: he's either all cocky apple-pie smiles or frantic confusion. And we really need to feel for Aames if we are to truly sympathise with his plight. Quite simply, we don't.

As with all Crowe's films, the soundtrack plays a role of its own. Again, on the surface it's impressive, but by the end it's intrusive. Of the supports, Diaz fares best as the sultry Julie, while Cruz's talents are lost in the confines of the 'quirky foreigner'. In tone, Vanilla Sky harks back to another Cruise vehicle, Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. And, like the latter, you get the feeling the film-makers are trying to trick us into thinking there's more going on here than there ever is.

Vanilla Sky is screening at UA cinemas, the Broadway circuit, AMC Festival Walk, Cityplaza and the GV circuit



Vanilla Sky