What stares back at you in the morning. Review on Vanilla Sky Movie

Are you in love with the face that stares back at you in the mirror each morning? What if someone was to take that away and give you something which you dread looking at? Is life worth living without vanity? Is it the essence of our existence, imperative for our survival as a social being? What is happiness to you?

Some of the questions I did not know I would ponder about when I got home the DVD of Vanilla Sky. And when I was finished watching it, I did not know how the hell had I missed watching it when this was released in 2001.

This brilliant Oscar nominated flick features Tom Cruise as David Aames, son of a rich magazine tycoon and inheritor of his business empire as a gorgeous looking, indulging, spoiled playboy who couldn’t care less about his luck. This dreamy life of his however takes a U-turn when his jealous “sleep with me anytime you like” friend Julie(played by Cameron Diaz) is blinded by obsession when she discovers that he is falling for a Spanish dancer Sophia(played by Penelope Cruz). Out of extreme obsessive frustration, she crash lands her car over a bridge with David in it and that is where the ugly truth dawns on David. His face gets distorted due to the accident and he discovers the world around him change in a flash. His new found love abandons him and he realizes the worth of the lucky life he had been living. He continues to live in misery until one cosmetic surgeon restores his original charms….

What follows will leave you thunderstruck and shocked as this movie culminates into a brilliantly laid out climax which many people would find hard to understand at first, much like what happened with Matrix. This ought to be one of the most under rated movie of recent times as it never really became a box office blazer.

What one thing this movie would surely do, if somehow you are not shocked or surprised, is leave you in a trance wondering about the frailty of life and relations. How dear really are the ones you call near and dear? How that one thing which you just take for granted is so precious for someone who does not have it? Just take my word for it and watch this. Worth every buck you would spend on it.