Simone is a delightfully funny movie that nevertheless gives us a good look at the life of its main character, movie director Viktor Taransky, played by veteran Al Pacino. Taransky has trouble handling his actors; for a man who puts `the work' above all else, catering to the petty demands of actresses who want Jacuzzis eighty paces from their trailers is stultifying. After Taransky's star, Nicola Anders (played by a delightful Winona Ryder) storms off the set of his latest movie, Taransky replaces her with a digitally rendered artificial actress provided to him by a dying admirer of his work. The programmed woman, named Simone, is a blonde with more glamour than beauty, and wears quantities of lip gloss that have been found fatal in laboratory animals. But she is a massive hit with audiences, and Taransky is tested to the limit to keep her identity as a piece of software secret. And even though Simone, docile as only a computer program can be, urges audiences to focus on Taransky's work, the work remains irrelevant to the audiences. It's Simone they love.
That the movie strains credibility is an understatement. Director-screenwriter Andre Niccol does not come close to dealing with all the problems arising from keeping a digital star's real identity secret. But the key point is, the problems that we do see Taransky solve, he solves so cleverly that we can believe that he has found off-screen solutions for the off-screen difficulties. Just as any heist movie depends on making the audience complicit with the thieves, Simone depends on making the audience complicit with Viktor Taransky's fraud. The story pulls this off without a hitch. When Taransky deflects what looks like certain exposure with a glib explanation of why Simone's studio contains nothing but a computer suite, I waved my arms and chanted, `Go Viktor! Go Viktor!'
Nicola Anders' reappearance is crucial, showing how Simone's success has cost Taransky the thing that matters most to him: his ability to do his work. Having taken some acting lessons and drawn on her own experiences and emotions, Nicola gives Taransky a screen test that wows him, and he realizes that Nicola should play the lead role in Taransky's new movie. Simone could never have surprised Taransky in this way; while the cyber-star does everything he tells her to, she has nothing of her own to contribute. But Taransky cannot cast Nicola in the lead; audience demand requires Simone to get the starring role.
Regrettably, a number of flaws keep this superb story from being a genuine classic. First, the photography is frequently awful. I don't know whether to blame the cinematographer or the director for the weird filters that must have been used to make the footage look this bad. Second, most of the actors, including Pacino, are not doing their best work, and that's usually a sign of bad direction. Only Winona Ryder is at the top of her form. The denouement flubs badly; not only is it predictable, but it requires the Taransky who met all of the problems engendered by Simone's presence with intelligence and imagination to meet the problems engendered by her absence with no moxie at all. And even to a cyber-illiterate like myself, the computer technology looks ridiculous (Taransky uses a 5¼' disk drive, and he has one of those keyboards with keys labeled with words like `Loop,' `Tears,' `Hologram' and probably `Self-Destruct'). Diagnosis: Niccol wrote an outstanding script that he should not have tried to direct.
And finally, I must really, seriously object to the untruth that the movie's publicity machine fed us, that the title character is merely a digital creation. The title character is played by the very much flesh-and-blood Rachel Roberts. Would that someone had taken to heart Taransky's daughter's last line: `We're fine with fake, as long as you don't lie about it.'
Rating: ***½ out of ****.
Recommendation: See it on video or DVD at your earliest opportunity.
That the movie strains credibility is an understatement. Director-screenwriter Andre Niccol does not come close to dealing with all the problems arising from keeping a digital star's real identity secret. But the key point is, the problems that we do see Taransky solve, he solves so cleverly that we can believe that he has found off-screen solutions for the off-screen difficulties. Just as any heist movie depends on making the audience complicit with the thieves, Simone depends on making the audience complicit with Viktor Taransky's fraud. The story pulls this off without a hitch. When Taransky deflects what looks like certain exposure with a glib explanation of why Simone's studio contains nothing but a computer suite, I waved my arms and chanted, `Go Viktor! Go Viktor!'
Nicola Anders' reappearance is crucial, showing how Simone's success has cost Taransky the thing that matters most to him: his ability to do his work. Having taken some acting lessons and drawn on her own experiences and emotions, Nicola gives Taransky a screen test that wows him, and he realizes that Nicola should play the lead role in Taransky's new movie. Simone could never have surprised Taransky in this way; while the cyber-star does everything he tells her to, she has nothing of her own to contribute. But Taransky cannot cast Nicola in the lead; audience demand requires Simone to get the starring role.
Regrettably, a number of flaws keep this superb story from being a genuine classic. First, the photography is frequently awful. I don't know whether to blame the cinematographer or the director for the weird filters that must have been used to make the footage look this bad. Second, most of the actors, including Pacino, are not doing their best work, and that's usually a sign of bad direction. Only Winona Ryder is at the top of her form. The denouement flubs badly; not only is it predictable, but it requires the Taransky who met all of the problems engendered by Simone's presence with intelligence and imagination to meet the problems engendered by her absence with no moxie at all. And even to a cyber-illiterate like myself, the computer technology looks ridiculous (Taransky uses a 5¼' disk drive, and he has one of those keyboards with keys labeled with words like `Loop,' `Tears,' `Hologram' and probably `Self-Destruct'). Diagnosis: Niccol wrote an outstanding script that he should not have tried to direct.
And finally, I must really, seriously object to the untruth that the movie's publicity machine fed us, that the title character is merely a digital creation. The title character is played by the very much flesh-and-blood Rachel Roberts. Would that someone had taken to heart Taransky's daughter's last line: `We're fine with fake, as long as you don't lie about it.'
Rating: ***½ out of ****.
Recommendation: See it on video or DVD at your earliest opportunity.