Cameron Crowe directs Tom Cruise, Penelope Cruz and Cameron Diaz in this existential psychosexual romance where a successful man’s dream life turns into a waking nightmare.

A big budget folly. Takes everything fascinating about Alejandro Amenábar’s 1997 Spanish film Open Your Eyes and stretches it out. The paranoid atmosphere works in fits and starts. You never feel like there is tangible plot that all the mystery and confusion can anchor into. Tom, bless him, is out of his depth as the broken disfigured version of himself. Hard to believe so many of the takes used in the final cut were his least cringey tries. Having said that the blockbuster art film production looks amazing. Diaz and Kurt Russell put in rare acting shifts and truly shine. There are a couple of iconic set pieces (deserted Time Square / a car crash / bedroom face shifting) that really amp up your unease. But any film that ends on three lengthy scenes of flat exposition just ain’t my bag. Well done everyone on working outside their wheelhouse but this, at best, is a noble failure. A worthy marathon. See you again in twenty years when I forget how testing you are Vanilla Sky.

5

Perfect Double Bill: Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/