Cheap Simone (DVD) (Al Pacino, Catherine Keener, Rachel Roberts (III)) (Andrew Niccol) Price

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Customer Reviews of Simone

One of the most pleasing Hollywood satires in ages
Sadly it is often the case that Hollywood is unlikely to laugh at itself, but Simone is a rare example. After the lead actress on Viktor Taransky's (Al Pacino) latest movie walks out he's left footing a huge bill, unless he can find a suitable replacement in time. In steps a crazy computer genius who has created Simulation One, a piece of software that can create a digital actress - Simone - who won't walk out on her film, will always follow her director's guidelines and can also channel equal parts Meryl Streep and Audrey Hepburn through use of a complicated network.

What makes Simone so enjoyable is that it's very very clever without sacrificing its humour. As the attention is shifted away from Taransky and onto Simone, issues of creation versus creator and the fickleness of an audience are brought into play. Whilst the scales tip and Simone overshadows Taransky, he attempts to sabotage her in interviews and even on film with the deliberately atrocious yet attributed to Simone production I Am Pig. Here the nature of celebrity is explored in its entireity, even if not in the most surprising way.

Al Pacino gives a nicely lighthearted turn as the troubled Taransky and kudos should go to Winona Ryder for sending herself up so well. Unfortunately, Catherine Keener (so good in Being John Malkovich) isn't given much to work with, but apart from that the casting is pretty much spot-on. In addition, there are some absolutely hilarious scenes, most involving Taransky's attempt to sabotage Simone by making her say controversial things concerning smoking, immigration and the flavour of dolphin meat. All of this is great stuff, milked for every penny it's worth. Whilst the satire might not be as coldly effective as it was in Niccol's previous work Gattaca, it's certainly timely and at the end of the day just plain enjoyable.

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Yikes, give me something else to watch...
I'm suprised to see all the glowing reviews of this film. Well, allow me to balance the scales a little. I was truly disappointed with this film and Al Pacino's role in it. It wasn't very good.

Andrew Niccol had done a great job with The Truman Show and Gatacca. What happened? This movie was sub-par in many ways and falls short of what I would call a good film.

Al Pacino plays Viktor Taransky, a director, whose recent string of films have tanked. One of the producers happen to be his ex-wife (Catherine Keener). She tells him it's time to pack up his stuff and leave. Just as he's doing so, a "mad scientist" if you will (named Hank played by Elias Koteas) approaches him and tells him how he's achieved the impossible and that he's one of Pacino's biggest fans. His achievement was the creation of Simulation One - Sim One - Simone. Pacino's character turns Simone into an overnight sensation that everyone thinks is a real person. From here, Elaine (Viktor's wife) takes him back into her production company. Viktor then continues to come up with movies for Simone to star in while trying to abate the growing public interest in knowing more about Simone. At the same time Simone begins to consume Viktor. Viktor talks to Simone, and answers himself as Simone. Both are one and the same; split personalities in Viktor's head. How Viktor chooses to deal with Simone's (yet ironically, not Viktor's) success is the subject of the rest of the movie.

The end was a bit predictable and I can think of better (albeit more twisted) endings to this film. Simone is really an empty-shell of a movie. It doesn't require much thought to watch. The public in the movie are just as mindless as the technical aspects of this film. The acting is of sit-com quality. Pacino was being his drunk-mopey self again. (I was beginning to wonder what happened to Jason Schwartzman after Rushmore. Well, he's in this film. For Catherine Keener fans, you might want to watch Lovely and Amazing instead.)

Working with computers all my life, I found the use of the 5.25" disk, the computers with absolutely no wiring on their backs, a projection screen with no projector, keyboards conveniently customized with all the functions Viktor needs, and viruses that can be cured by simple keystrokes to be extremely ridiculous and laughable.

I would recommend the viewer pass on this one.

LEAP rating (each out of 5):
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L (Language) - 2 (nothing really stands out about this film, it tries to be a film about family but fails)
E (Erotica) - 0.5 (n/a - just good looking actresses (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Rachel Roberts))
A (Action) - 0 (n/a)
P (Plot) - 3 (juvenile plot, substandard acting, completely unbelievable)

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A wealth of riches that should have been so much better
Andrew Niccol, writer of director's Peter Weir's highly entertaining and thought-provoking "The Truman Show" takes the helm by directing what I see as an interesting and recurring theme in his work. In both "Truman" and "Simone," Niccol seems postulate that we accept almost everything in our lives without close examination. He goes further to theorize that sometimes what we tend to believe what we are shown even more that what we see for ourselves even if we take the time for a cursory examination. This perspective is particularly appropriate with regard as to how we are in such awe of celebrities and think that whatever they do is worth reading/talking about.

In my opinion, he's on to something, but although "Simone" begins with an interesting premise, Niccol squanders the opportunity and the end result is neither thought-provoking, sufficiently funny, or ever believable at any level even as satire. Although I generally hate to give anything away about the movies that I review, I will get into the main premise, so if you know nothing about this movie, you may want to skip the rest of the review. The movie starts out with much promise as director Viktor Taransky (played by the always great to watch Al Pacino) is having major issues with his impossible to please leading lady Nicola Anders (played with over the top gusto by Winona Rider). Since Nicola believes that she's not being treated like the star that she is, she walks out of the movie before it is finished due to what will be termed the usual "creative differences," even though it's all about ego.

At this point the movie had me hooked as I started to anticipate a satire/spoof of Hollywood a la "The Player" or the creation of an alternate universe a la "The Truman Show," or even better something that would up the ante on both. Regrettably, what follows is a mess. Due to circumstances that are best left unrevealed, Viktor is able to create "Simone," a computer generated actress who does not act like a diva and winds up charming all of Hollywood. It still sounds like it has potential, does it not?

Well, not when the movie never makes a convincing case that Simone is a good actress (in fact her scenes are not very good, but with only one exception, they don't seem to be intended to be funny) or on the other hand the movie does not make the case that her universal appeal might due to her beauty or any "X" factor that it was computer generated that somehow convinced or hypnotized people overlook her obvious lack of talent.

What follows are many attempts to be "zany" as everyone wants a piece of Simone, but that can't happen since she's not real; notwithstanding Vikotr attempts to give the people what they want in ways thar are not as funny or suspenseful as they could have been. Then the movie totally runs out of the little steam it generated entirely by rounding up the story in such a sappy and absolutely unsatisfying way, that you wind up feeling not only bored but cheated.

The performances are good all across. Catherine Keener plays Viktor's ex-wife with great aplomb and Evan Rachel Wood (a future superstar) plays his daughter. Winona Ryder also appears later in the movie and has a scene with Pacino that simply steals the movie; however in the end the story and its execution are so ridiculous that it's impossible to take the characters or their situations seriously or even laugh with/at them. Accordingly if you don't buy what you are seeing nor care what happens, it is a clear sign that the movie has failed even at a base level. It's a shame to see such an interesting premise with such a talented cast totally wasted.

As it stands Niccol does not do anything to further or make fun of a technological practice that is already with us to different degrees. First came actors doing their thing in front blue screens to enhance action/suspense movies. Then came the ability to create of masses of people via just a few to add magnitude to certain scenes/movies requiring scale. Just recently an integral character in "The Lord of The Rings" trilogy was the result of a marriage of an actor and computer animation, and there was talk of an Oscar nomination for the actor "part" of the character. Simone is already with us, but she would not be receiving double Oscar nominations for her feeble seductions in the real world, nor does the movie create one to make such a premise possible.

I give "Simone" 2 stars only because of Winona Ryder's short but vital scenes and because the cast is top-notch even as the movie falls deeper and deeper into a third rate sitcom. I hope that Niccol's next project is more than just a concept as I am sure that the mind that wrote "The Truman Show" is capable of taking a premise and making it work within its own universe.