80) Open Your Eyes
Director: Alejandro Amenabar
Year: 1997
Plot Summary: A very handsome man finds the love of his life, but he suffers an accident and needs to have his face rebuilt by surgery after it is severely disfigured.
Many of my friends rave about Vanilla Sky, the Cameron Crowe directed movie starring Tom Cruise. However, aside from Almost Famous I'm not a fan of Crowe's work and Tom Cruise has, in my opinion, only ever gave one noteworthy performance throughout his career in the terrific Magnolia. Therefore, I chose to, instead, check out the Spanish original of Vanilla Sky entitled Open Your Eyes.There's a lot to enjoy about the film as it, first of all, boasts two brilliant performances by Eduardo Noriega and Penelope Cruz. Secondly, it's a story that admirably never slips into cliche or genre conventions as it morphs from a touching romance into a dark drama and later even incorporates many elements of a science fiction movie. Thirdly, it's also very ambitious, telling a story that from the very first scene is puzzling and enigmatic and will require some thinking on the audiences behalf to understand the whole plot.
However, while its intentions are good and Alejandro Amenabar deserves some recognition for creating a fairly unique picture that seems to incorporate the visual style of Lynch and Kubrick with the storytelling of Charlie Kaufman, Open Your Eyes isn't necessarily fantastic.
The main problem that I found with Open Your Eyes is that, while I mentioned before that it's admirable for not conforming to one genre, the many different tones, themes and styles that appear in the film don't quite complement each other. Unlike a movie such as Synecdoche New York which found a great balance between the darkness and sadness and the comedy and romance, Open Your Eyes ultimately feels rather disjointed.
Moreover, the story becomes very far-fetched towards the end. The opening hour, in which Cesar is forced to cope with living with a disfigured face after always being so popular because of his good looks, is grounded in reality through universal themes like rejection, heartbreak and desperation, therefore making it involving viewing. But then Open Your Eyes reaches the last act, and as the story morphs into science fiction the narrative becomes so ridiculous that you end up feeling a little perplexed by the whole thing. After all, it feels so out of place and disorientating considering how realistic the opening half of the movie was.
Nevertheless, despite its glaring faults and its confused storyline which too often diverges from the point, Open Your Eyes is ambitious, visually arresting and has two startling lead performances which certainly make it worthy of a watch if you fancy this kind of thing. Besides, I bet it's a damn sight better than Vanilla Sky.
3/5
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