S1m0ne: Movie Review, DVD Review (2002)

(Originally published 2002)

Written, produced and directed by Andrew Niccol, 100 minutes, rated PG-13.

In the Hollywood satire "Simone," Al Pacino is Viktor Taransky, a down-in-the-dumps director of art films who's eager to go to any lengths to find that perfect star, a talented, undemanding actress willing to follow direction, happy to show up on time for work, and who generally doesn't behave like a supermodel with a SAG card.

Does such a person exist in today's Hollywood, where overpaid, A-list stars insist upon receiving at least some control over the movies in which they appear? That depends on how you define the word "exist."

The film, which Andrew Niccol directed and produced from his own script, is essentially "Frankenstein" for 21st century Hollywood, a movie that asks stinging questions about the state of our celebrity-obsessed culture and the Hollywood machine while gleefully skewering both.

The monster in question isn't the traditional lug with a square head and green skin, but a cool, gorgeous blond with a wide smile and sun-touched skin. Her name is Simone and she’s fabulous, the new “It” girl, just attractive and soulless enough to be adored by the masses.

The catch? In spite of Simone’s lifelike appearance, she’s little more than a sultry gathering of pixels, the man-made product of a sophisticated computer program Viktor inherits just when he needs it most. Indeed, with his latest film nearly kaput after his star, Nicola Anders (Winona Ryder), quits in a huff, Viktor needs the sort of Hollywood magic Simone offers to help save his picture.

She does more than that. After Viktor secretly and digitally inserts her into those scenes vacated by Nicola, Simone becomes a world-wide sensation, re-energizes Viktor’s career and then nearly sinks it when the world starts begging to see her in the flesh. With Viktor unable to deliver, what ensues is a cynical farce filled with acute observations about the state of the movies that eventually gives way to the sort of formulaic, crowd-pleasing elements Niccol has gone out of his way to trash.

Its ending is absurdly pat and uplifting, almost an intrusion, but whether that’s because Niccol wanted to end with his sharpest comment on Hollywood, which can’t help itself from generating tidy conclusions to the most absurd situations, or because his own studio, New Line Cinema, demanded that he end on a bright note, is unclear.

Either way, it doesn’t matter. The film’s falsely happy ending, while not as clever as it could have been, nevertheless gets to the heart of what’s wrong with so many mainstream movies.

Grade: B