Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Mike Cahill
Starring: Owen Wilson, Salma Hayek, Nesta Cooper, Madeline Zima, DeRon Horton, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., Joshua
Leonard
Mike Cahill makes the sort of science fiction movies that seem aimed at a
unique fanbase - that stoner who hangs out in the kitchens of parties and
corners girls who just want to grab a beer from the fridge with
pseudo-philosophical questions like "What if there was an exact copy of our
planet populated by exact copies of ourselves, mannnn???" (Another Earth), or "Duude, maybe the eyes really are the windows to the soul???" (I Origins). With his latest and most graciously budgeted wannabe mind-bender,
Bliss, Cahill indulgences that ultimate party kitchen talking point - "What if
we're, like, all just living in a simulation, bro???"
Part
Matrix, part the sort of movie a scientologist might make, and part rom-com,
Bliss stars Owen Wilson as depressed office worker Greg
Wittle, who accidentally kills his boss upon being fired for his constant
daydreaming. Fleeing the scene, Greg goes to a nearby bar where he meets
Isabel (Salma Hayek) a homeless Mexican woman dressed like the fifth
member of 4 Non Blondes. Somewhat improbably, she almost immediately
convinces Greg that it doesn't matter that he killed his boss, as none of
this is real anyway. Now that I think of it, if Salma Hayek started talking
to me in a bar I'd be inclined to go along with anything she said too.
Initially, Greg finds the idea that nothing really matters liberating and
has fun behaving in a consequence free manner. But then when he's whisked
out of the simulation to the "real" world, where Isabel is actually a
research scientist, he realises that the one part of his life he truly
appreciated - his daughter Emily (Nesta Cooper) - never really
existed. This raises the question at the heart of Bliss's needlessly complicated plot - whether it's better to live happily in
ignorance or to have all the facts but little contentment. Is ignorance
really bliss?
Bliss never quite grapples with this notion. For most of us,
whether the world is real or merely a simulation makes little difference, as
ultimately how we live is determined by factors outside of our control, by
the lottery that decides whether we're born into Royalty or in a slum.
Cahill doesn't seem interested in exploring the sociopolitical questions
that Bliss seems ripened to mine, and so the film plays like a
poorly thought out Matrix knockoff without the gun-play.
For a movie with so little to say, Bliss sure does contain an
awful lot of exposition. Wilson is a good everyman foil for this sort of
thing, and he manages to somewhat keep the jargon grounded, but Hayek is
badly miscast and can't sell the cod-philosophy the script asks of her. The
film closes on an emotional moment that should have us reaching for the
Kleenex, but it hasn't done anything to earn such a resolution. After
spending 140 minutes prodding our brains, Cahill finally attempts to
penetrate our hearts, but by that point most viewers will likely have
unplugged themselves from this particular simulation and returned to more
interesting real world chores like folding laundry, taking out the bins or
filling out a tax return.
