I have not seen Vanilla Sky’s source – Abre Los Ojos – so I cannot be disappointed by the remake, as many others were. And since I’m a suck for identity questioning mind trips, I think it’s understandable that I was blown away by Vanilla Sky.

David (Tom Cruise) is a rich young punk who has enjoyed fooling around with the blonde Julie Gianni (Cameron Diaz), but then meets and falls in love with the more sophisticated Sofia Serrano (Penelope Cruz). Julie gets angry at the fact and drives off a bridge with David in the car. She dies. His face is messed up. Then the weirdness begins. We eventually discover David is accused of murder, but he is having problems with his memory, and can’t seem to distinguish dreams from reality.

The experience of watching Vanilla Sky is moving, exciting, tedious and boring all at the same time. The excitement takes the upper hand in the long run – it’s an engaging watch. But it does seem as if we have to wade through quite a lot of baggage along the way. It’s emotional – but it’s emotionally exhausting.

More importantly, Vanilla Sky lacks the simple, uplifting power that Crowe’s other films have. David has certainly changed by the film’s end and we have to believe he’ll be a better person after it all. But we don’t know for sure. Vanilla Sky seems to spend more time playing with its premise than using it to tell a real story of character change. As such, it falls far short of Crowe’s other films.

But it’s still fascinating. Vanilla Sky is an ethereal journey through the skies of the mind that will take more than one trip to fully absorb.

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