Vanilla Sky – Daily Press

Cruise and Crowe Speak On The Stunning ‘Vanilla Sky’

With “Vanilla Sky,” director Cameron Crowe (“Almost Famous,” “Jerry Maguire”) proves that he is a pop culture god, a master of the visual and a brilliant writer. Not only that – he manages to stunningly re-create an already excellent film released just four years ago.

“Vanilla Sky” is basically another version of Alejandro Amenabar’s 1997 Spanish thriller “Abre los Ojos.” But instead of merely imitating and translating Amenabar’s work, Crowe attempted to form a dialogue between the two films and come up with his own set of questions and conclusions.

Tom Cruise, who takes the lead in “Sky,” described Crowe’s approach as “getting his band together and covering a song.”

In a recent press release, Amenabar complimented “Sky,” saying, “the projects are like two very special brothers. They have the same concerns, but their personalities are quite different … one likes opera and the other likes rock and roll.”

Indeed Crowe displays a prevalent rock and roll influence in his work, and in “Sky,” his use of music even tops the soundtrack of his last film, “Almost Famous,” whose story centers on rock and roll.

“Music is often a better movie than most movies because it plays in your head and it can be anything,” Crowe said in a recent interview. “The challenge is always to come up with the right images that can go with music that I love. Music and film make such a great marriage when it works.”

As the film opens, Cruise, in the role of a freewheeling young publisher living in the lap of luxury, wakes up to Radiohead’s “Everything in Its Right Place,” from the album Kid A (which was apparently one of the most popular CDs played on the set). He then gets into his car, drives through the New York streets and arrives in an eerily vacant Times Square. Crowe plays with our eyes and ears to orchestrate what is probably one of the strongest and most clever soundtracks in cinematic history, which also includes the moody ethereality of bands like Spiritualized and Sigur Ros, the potent rock of REM, U2 and Jeff Buckley and the gentle classics of Bob Dylan. Paul McCartney even contributed the film’s title song, much to Crowe’s surprise and delight.

The plot of “Sky” takes us on a psychological roller coaster ride filled with uncertainty, suspense and disturbing confusion until the film’s conclusion. Cruise plays wealthy publishing executive David Aames, who coasts through life, has casual affairs with women and doesn’t seem to have a care in the world except for the sour and envious board of his company (“The Seven Dwarfs”) intending to oust him from power. Suddenly and unexpectedly, David finds true happiness and falls in love with the charismatic and charming Sofia Serrano (Penelope Cruz, who took the same role in “Abre los Ojos”).

However, Julie Gianni (Cameron Diaz), a woman with whom David casually slept with in the past, looms in the background. Maniacal and suicidal, she takes David on a horrifying car ride, crashes and ends up killing herself and injuring David, distorting his face into a grotesque mess. With this physical transformation, everything changes in David’s life and we are taken on a twisted journey through his mind that eventually turns somewhat science-fictional.

“I am not a fan of movies where something happens physically to someone and then the whole movie is about the affliction – it’s hard to put an affliction into a story,” Crowe said. “This time it’s part of the character and he plays it that way.”

Cruise gives a knockout performance as David and is especially impressive while playing his injury and conveying super-intensity with a prosthetic mask on his face throughout almost half of the film. Take the passion he put into his role as sex evangelist Frank Mackey in “Magnolia,” multiply it by ten and you have Cruise’s driving force as David Aames.

In “Sky,” Crowe also brings in the concept of media and the weight it has in our everyday lives. We recognize several pop culture references, such as a replica scene of the cover of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan in which David and Sofia walk down a VW-lined New York street. David’s apartment is decked with posters of “Jules and Jim” and “Breathless” and we see shots of those films replicated. The film’s title derives from a Monet painting hanging in David’s apartment. Crowe indulges in pop culture and we engage on a mission to pick out all of his smart references in “Sky.”

Cruise called “Sky” a “pop culture thrill ride.” He also said, “With the music that is chosen, the characters, the fact that you’ve got Times Square – there’s iconography in the picture. In our own life, you can’t dissociate yourself from pop culture — it just is, in terms of the clothes you wear and the choices you make. Cameron really understands it because he has looked at it from the inside out.”

Crowe, who wrote for Rolling Stone at one time, claimed he wanted to “delve into pop culture and get all of its hideous wonderfulness. It still defines every day of my life in some way or another, and I either battle with the effects or go with them.”

“Sky” marks Crowe’s most complex and elaborate work yet. The film is packed tight with detail, color, great performances from the actors and plot twists galore. At times, one may feel bombarded or on overload – but hang in there, and even see it again.

“In this movie, every little frame is packed with stuff and every little thing everyone says matters,” asserted Crowe. “Any movie that I watch for inspiration reminds me that the audience is always watching and listening, and I don’t squander that opportunity.”

Courtesy of The Daily Free Press – Kerri Chyka – December, 2001