Simone Review
by Shaun Sages (Saltlick83 AT aol DOT com)August 21st, 2002
Simone (2002)
A film review by Shaun Sages www.MovieNavigator.org
GRADE: C
Starring: Al Pacino, Catherine Keener, Pruitt Taylor Vince,
Jay Mohr, Evan Rachel Wood, Jason Schwartzman
Directed by Andrew Niccol
Running Time: 117 minutes
Rated PG-13 for some sensuality
Since the advent of CGI, its been predicted that in due time live actors will be replaced with digital performers who don’t improvise or ask for salary increases. But can synthetic thespians (or synthespians) elicit the same emotions -such as moving audiences to tears- as flesh and blood actors? Can they effectively reenact De Niro’s renowned “You talkin’ to me?” monologue from Taxi Driver? According to writer-director Andrew Niccol, it doesn’t matter because either way the public doesn’t care about performance. Rather, the masses crave tabloids and celebrity exposure; anything to help them feel they personally know a person.
In Simone, Al Pacino plays Viktor Taransky, an artistically visionary director who’s on the verge of being blackballed by Hollywood and fired by his studio executive ex-wife (Catherine Keener). When bankable star Nicola Anders (Winona Ryder in a cameo role) drops out of his latest film, all hopes of reviving a wounded career are diminished. No actor, no matter how unknown, wants to work with Viktor - - that is until a computer whiz and longtime admirer (Elias Koteas, also in a cameo) gives him the perfect solution. Wrapped in paper is a disk containing the program Simulation One, or Simone as renamed by Viktor.
Programming Simone to adopt the talent and nuances of beloved actresses such as Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn, her beauty and charm are displayed in front of an embracing public in Viktor’s new movie. Simone becomes a phenomenon overnight and, in return, an uncontrollable Frankenstein-like creation. And that’s about the time Simone’s moral question pops-up; should the director come clean about the pixilated actress, or continue with the charade. In other words, can the public accept a digitized performer? This is also when Simone stops expanding on its interesting concepts in way for Viktor to plan new schemes of making his star look palpable to her unsuspecting fans.
Niccol seems to have remade The Truman Show (which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay) as a Hollywood satire; only it lacks the depth of his previous screenplay. Simone stretches a good idea into redundant comedy that isn’t funny past the opening jokes. And neither is leading man Al Pacino, whose lifeless performance ranks among his most unimpressive. Pacino seems to be replaying his sleepwalking act from Insomnia, which fit into that film’s context but has no place in this one. Though the man can be funny, recall his playful Lucifer in Devil’s Advocate, here he’s too drained of energy to generate laughs. Then again, aside for Pruitt Taylor Vince playing a Simone-obsessed tabloid journalist, the entire cast is lifeless. As lifeless as the 3D generated title character.
While there is plenty of humor to spare, along with numerous studio potshots, most of it is within the first half-hour involving Simone’s success. Were she actually cast in a film, surely critics and audiences alike would trash her performance. But that’s the point Niccol tries getting across; people are unable to differentiate handcrafted effects from digital ones. We’ve been trained to accept Star Wars’-CGI over 2001’s non-digital effects. The message is an interesting one, and if Niccol had directed his second feature with less obviousness and repetition, as in not reducing the story to a series of comic cover-ups, Simone would’ve conveyed that message without forcing us to believe it.
-Copyright 2002 by Shaun Sages
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
