S1M0NE
(a film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: A Hollywood director tired of pandering to the
demands of spoilt brat actresses uses a new computer
program to create an entirely digital actress who can be
commanded to just follow his will. Andrew Niccol creates
a sort of dual to his THE TRUMAN SHOW in which the world
is real and the character is not. The result is an often
clever satire of popular culture. Rating: 7 (0 to 10),
+2 (-4 to +4)
In a comic reworking of FRANKENSTEIN, a film director tired of having to deal with prima donna actresses and actors tries an alternative. Victor Taransky, played by Al Pacino, gets an opportunity to use a secret computer program that allows him to create a digital image of a non-existent actress named Simone. Simone is really short for "Simulation One." Simone is purely an extension of Taransky, completely in his control, but that does not mean that the whole project does not get out of control as this new actress becomes a hot popular craze.
The film was written, produced, and directed by Andrew Niccol. Niccol previously wrote and directed GATTACA, my choice for the best science fiction film of the 1990s. He also wrote THE TRUMAN SHOW. That latter was about a real person in a totally artificial world. This film has a totally artificial person in a real world.
There are several large gaps in the plot logic. The largest is that the film glosses over the studio financial arrangements with a non-existent actress. Some of what is done with computers in this film also seems unrealistic considering what the capabilities of computers are ever going to be.
Rachel Roberts accepted the uncredited title role. In the credits it is claimed that Simone is played by Simone. She is supposed to be playing an amalgam of several great actresses. She allows her acting to be totally the opposite of the genuineness of those actors. Similarly the films that Taransky makes with Simone seem strangely dull and stylized to be the great popular successes the plot requires these films within the film to be. Though it is interesting in this Frankenstein story that she was in her own way pieced together from dead people. Pacino has a great time and shares it with the audience. He plays his role with just a light touch of schizophrenia as he speaks the lines to be repackaged for Roberts's lips. In some cases he actually argues with Simone in much the way that Anthony Perkins argues with his mother in PSYCHO.
This is an amusing satire of the Hollywood star system. While this film is no GATTACA it does make for a fun, science fiction comedy. I will rate it a 7 on the 0 to 10 scale and a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Copyright 2002 Mark R. Leeper
========== X-RAMR-ID: 32875 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 785093 X-RT-TitleID: 1114834 X-RT-AuthorID: 1309 X-RT-RatingText: 7/10
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews