1. Vanilla Sky is a 2001 Cameron Crowe thriller starring Tom Cruise, Penelope Cruz and Cameron Diaz.
The film challenges the nature of reality by telling the story of David Ames, played by Tom Cruise. Ames
is the wealthy heir of a New York publishing company. He enjoys the accoutrements of being a well-to-do
New York City bachelor, including having a casual affair with actress Julie Gianni, who is played by
Cameron Diaz. Ames meets beautiful Sofia Serrano, played by Penelope Cruz, at his birthday party. He
soon begins to wonder if Sofia is his soul mate. Ames makes a pledge to Sofia that he will end his
relationship with Julie; however, on his way out of her apartment he finds Julie waiting for him. Julie offers
Ames a ride, which he accepts. As soon as Ames gets in the car, Julie drives off a bridge, declaring her
love for him. She dies instantly. Although Ames survives the accident, he is badly disfigured and
constantly in pain. Ames becomes bitter and angry about his fate, but seeks out Sofia, who tells him that
she does not know if she can deal with his anger over the accident. Ames gets drunk and passes out in
the street, but the next morning he awakens to Sofia, who agrees to help him.
As Ames’s relationship with Sofia grows, he has cosmetic surgery to restore his destroyed face. He
begins to experience strange hallucinations, including seeing Sofia as Julie. Startled at the change, Ames
smothers Julie with a pillow, only to discover that he has murdered Sofia instead. Dr. Curtis McCabe,
played by Kurt Russell, is a court-appointed psychologist who begins to work with Ames to discover the
roots of his madness. In a session, Ames recalls seeing an advertisement for Life Extension, and Ames
and Dr. McCabe discover that Life Extension is a cryonics company that freezes people who are clinically
dead and then places them inside of a lucid dream until they are unfrozen. Ames realizes that he is
having a lucid dream that has somehow careened out of control. Life Extension gives Ames two choices--
to wake up and resume his life or to continue in his repaired lucid dream. In order to wake up, Ames
jumps from the side of a skyscraper as the screen goes black. The film ends as it began; with a voice
telling Ames to wake up.
How the ending, and ultimately the entire movie, is interpreted is largely up to the individual. Was the plot
the result of a dream in Ames’s coma? Was he indeed having a lucid dream? Is the entire film a dream?
How each viewer views and interprets the ending can tell them much about their own philosophies about
the nature of reality.