Vanilla Sky is a 2001 psychological thriller starring Tom Cruise, and adapted and directed by Cameron Crowe. It is a close remake of the original Spanish Open Your Eyes (Abre Los Ojos), with the interesting fact that Penelope Cruz played the same character in both movies.David Aames (Tom Cruise) tells the story from a prison cell to his psychiatrist, Curtis, while wearing a prosthetic mask he refuses to take off: David was a Millionaire Playboy who inherited a publishing company after the death of his father. He met Sofia (Penelope Cruz). As they became instantly attracted to each other, he brushed aside his "fuck buddy", Julianna (Cameron Diaz). When Julianna heard of this, she tried to kill herself and David in a car accident. She died but David survived with a disfigured face. He is haunted by increasingly bizarre occurrences.With all that said and done, please just watch the movie before going any further. Major spoilers ahead.
"I'll tell you in another life, when we are both cats."
"Every passing minute is a another chance to turn it all around."
"What is happiness to you, David?"
Alien Sky: The sky is the same milky orange with white clouds as the sky in David's mother's favorite painting, so his subconscious made it that color all the time.
All Just a Dream: An unusual example, in that different interpretations of the film tend to boil down not to whether the film is a dream or not, but rather to how much of it is. The most basic interpretation is that offered by tech support: after the nightclub scene, David never saw Sofia again, signed a contract with Life Extension and put himself into a coma in which he dreamed the events of the latter half of the film. The bizarre occurrences were glitches due to his repressed guilt over Julianna. In the end, David decides to wake up from the dream.
Ambiguous Ending: Word Of God says the ending can be interpreted in five different ways (though there are doubtless more):
Everything tech support says is true.
The entire film is a dream.
Everything after the car accident is David's dream while in a coma.
The entire film is the plot of Brian's book.
Everything after the car accident is a hallucination caused by David's medication.
As Himself: Conan O'Brien makes a quick cameo. Spielberg's cameo might also be an example of this.
Berserk Button: Do NOT have the audacity to call an obvious mask, a "prosthetic shield"...
Dr Pomeranz:: It's a helpful unit.
David:: Good. Because, for a minute there, I thought we were talking about a FUCKING MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASK!!!
Betty and Veronica: Subverted - David makes it clear from the very beginning that he has no real interest in Julianna (the "Veronica" of the two) and is really just using her for casual sex.
Bilingual Bonus: The first words spoken in the film are "abre los ojos", Spanish for "open your eyes", which doubles as a reference to the original film.
Bittersweet Ending: Because it was All Just a Dream, all the scenes after the nightclub didn't really happen. David never did get Sofia in the end and he's still disfigured. Then he decides to return to the real world, set far into the future where they can fix his face and he may even have the chance to find Sofia "in another life." Additionally, he will probably keep and cherish the dream memories of Sofia. Altogether, an ending which leaves you hopeful.
He's also flat broke, not having bothered to provide for himself.
Climactic Elevator Ride: Tom Cruise's character meets with "Tech Support", who proceeds to explain what exactly's been happening to him throughout the film. To drive it home, the elevator ride is impossibly long, making it clear that Cruise is in a dreamworld.
And in the end, we cannot say for sure that David has waken up. After all, he wakes with Sofia telling him to "open his eyes" - and we didn't see him hit the ground (he is terrified about the impact, not about the heights). Maybe the entire movie was just the tech support fixing the glitch?
Ethical Slut: Here seen working better in theory then in a reality where people are lying to themselves.
Foreign Remake: Of the Spanish film Abre Los Ojos. The director of that film was credited as a producer and, as mentioned, Penelope Cruz played the same character in both films. Nearly every scene is identical as well, making this a closer remake than most examples.
Fun drinking game: count how many times someone mentions dreams or nightmares, or admonishes David to wake up.
Freeze Frame Bonus: It's a lot easier to catch a lot of the foreshadowing with the "pause" button on your remote.
A specific example: David's car has a sticker on it which reads 2/30/01. As the 30th of February does not occur in the Gregorian calendar, this may be a subtle hint that the entire film is All Just a Dream.
Friends with Benefits: David has a "Fuck Buddy" relationship with Julianna. Julianna takes things a little more seriously and when she finds out the true nature of the relationship, it doesn't end well.
Grey and Gray Morality: Even the "good" people in the movie like Brian and Sofia make morally questionable decisions: Brian tells Julie that she's David's fuckbuddy, for instance, and Sofia's (admittedly understandable) abandoning of a David very clearly in need of help. Similarly, even the "bad" people are sympathetic and mostly mean well: Julie's suffering Love Makes You Evil more than she's actually a villain.
Homage: David is a fan of French new wave films, which later influenced the characters and situations he creates within the lucid dream. In reference to this, jump cuts reminiscent of Godard films pop up here and there.
How We Got Here: The beginning is told from David to Curtis.
David: My dreams are a cruel joke. They taunt me. Even in my dreams I'm an idiot... who knows he's about to wake up to reality. If I could only avoid sleep. But I can't. I try to tell myself what to dream. I try to dream that I am flying. Something free. It never works...
One that could be interpreted as either this or a Meaningful Echo: "I'll see you in another life, when we are both cats."
Non-Indicative Name: The service Life Extension offers is called "Lucid Dream". Rather misleading considering that real-life lucid dreams are dreams in which the dreamer is aware that he or she is dreaming.
Reference Overdosed: According to Word Of God, there are 429 pop-culture references in the film, 428 of which were intentional. Bizarrely, many of these references actually directly influence the plot, almost to the point of deconstructing the idea of pop-culture references in fiction: tech support explains that many of the characters and situations he created in his lucid dream were derived from the popular culture he experienced when younger.
Remake Cameo: As noted above, Penelope Cruz plays the same character she did in the original film. Additionally, the first words spoken in the film are "abre los ojos", the title of the original.
Shaky Cam: Handheld cameras are used more and more frequently as David's mental state deteriorates.
Soundtrack Dissonance: Frequently when licensed music is used. Special note go to Sofia's death and the sequence in which David realises he's dreaming - to the sounds of "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys.
Standard '50s Father: It is implied that David invented a father figure for himself (Dr. McCabe) in this mold, based on Gregory Peck in To Kill A Mockingbird. If you look closely in one scene, you can see the guard in the prison watching the movie on a television.
Trope Maker / Older Than They Think: Vanilla Sky/Abre los Ojos beat Inception to the punch by about nine more than ten years, in terms of exploring the idea of medically-induced lucid dreams.
Unexpectedly Abandoned: The opening scene features David running and screaming as he discovers downtown Manhattan is completely deserted.
What Happened to the Mouse?: Subverted, leading to Fridge Brilliance. After the accident David mentions that, in addition to getting his face disfigured, he broke his arm, which affected his mobility thereof somewhat. He's later seen moving the arm in question rather awkwardly, and his medical team offer to do something about it when he complains about his facial disfigurement. Upon waking up the morning after the nightclub scene, however, his arm is never brought up again and he seems to have inexplicably regained full use of it, despite never receiving additional surgery on it. This is a subtle hint that he is, in fact, dreaming.
Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Not only does Julianna destroy her own life and David's, her memory also destroys a certain universe.
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