S1m0ne
| S1m0ne | |
|---|---|
 Promotional poster |
|
| Directed by | Andrew Niccol |
| Produced by | Andrew Niccol Daniel Lupi (co-producer) |
| Written by | Andrew Niccol |
| Starring | Al Pacino Catherine Keener Rachel Roberts Evan Rachel Wood Winona Ryder Rebecca Romijn |
| Music by | Carter Burwell |
| Cinematography | Edward Lachman |
| Editing by | Paul Rubell |
| Distributed by | New Line Cinema |
| Release date(s) | August 23, 2002 |
| Running time | 117 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $10 million |
| Box office | $19,576,023 (worldwide) |
S1m0ne (also spelled Simone) is a 2002 science fiction comedy film written, produced and directed by Andrew Niccol. It stars Al Pacino, Catherine Keener, Rachel Roberts, Evan Rachel Wood, Winona Ryder and Rebecca Romijn.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
When the star (played by Winona Ryder) of out-of-favor director Viktor Taransky's (Al Pacino) new film refuses to finish it, Taransky is forced to find a replacement. Contractual requirements totally prevent using her image in the film, so he must re-shoot. Instead, Viktor experiments with a new computer program he inherits from late acquaintance Hank Aleno (Elias Koteas) which allows creation of a computer-generated woman which he can easily animate to play the film's central character. Viktor names his virtual actor "Simone", a name derived from the computer program's title, Simulation One. Seamlessly incorporated into the film, Simone (Rachel Roberts) gives a fantastic performance, exactly controlled by Viktor. The film is immediately a huge success. The studio, and soon the world, ask "who is Simone?"
Viktor initially claims that Simone is a recluse and requests her privacy be respected, but that only intensifies media demands for her to appear. Viktor intends to reveal the secret of her non-existence after the second picture. To satisfy demand, he executes a number of progressively ambitious stunts relying on misdirection and cinematic special effects technology. Eventually it escalates to simulated remote location video live interviews.
In one instance, two determined tabloid reporters discover Viktor used out-of-date stock photography as a background during an interview instead of being on that site as claimed and blackmail him into getting Simone to make a live appearance. He arranges her to perform a song at a stadium event appearing in a cloud of smoke and then using flawless holographic technology. The perception of being in person is reinforced with realtime visualization on the stadium's monitors. Simone ascends to even greater heights, winning two Academy Awards for Best Actress.
Once the pressure of serving his creation reaches a breaking point for Viktor, he decides to ruin Simone's career as an act of vengeance. Simone's next film, I Am Pig, is her directorial debut and a tasteless treatment about zoophilia intended to disgust audiences, which not only fails to achieve the desired effect of audience alienation, but also serves to foster her credibility as a risk-taking, fearless and avant-garde artist. Taransky's subsequent attempts to discredit Simone by having her drink, smoke and curse at public appearances and use politically incorrect statements similarly backfire, when the press instead begins to see her as refreshingly honest. As a last resort, Taransky decides to depose of Simone completely by using a computer virus to erase her and dumps the hard drive and floppy disks into a steamer trunk and buries it at sea, then announces to the press she has died of a rare virus contracted on her Goodwill Tour of the Third World. During the funeral, the police interrupt, open the coffin, and find only Simone's cardboard cutout. He is arrested and shown a security camera video where he loads a large trunk on his yacht.
After being charged with her murder, he admits that Simone is not a person, but a computer program; the chest contained only computer data, though no one listens to him. Viktor's daughter and ex-wife enter his studio to try to help. They find Viktor's forgotten virus source disk (Plague) and apply an anti-virus program to eradicate the computer virus. They revive Simone and have her appear on national television laughing while holding up a newspaper headline with her obituary. At the end, Simone and Viktor are remotely interviewed at home about their new (virtual) baby. Simone is concerned about her child's future and decides to enter politics. The film shows how the fake is produced using the chroma key technique.
A post-credits sequence shows Viktor creating fake footage of Simone in a supermarket, which one of her pursuers sees, believing it real.
[edit] Cast
- Al Pacino as Viktor Taransky
- Catherine Keener as Elaine Christian
- Evan Rachel Wood as Lainey Christian
- Rachel Roberts as Simone
- Winona Ryder as Nicola Anders
- Jay Mohr as Hal Sinclair
- Pruitt Taylor Vince as Max Sayer
- Jason Schwartzman as Milton
- Elias Koteas as Hank Aleno (uncredited)
- Rebecca Romijn as Faith (uncredited)
- Joel Heyman as Male
[edit] Production
The film's producers considered using an actual computer-generated character to play the part of Simone,[citation needed] but eventually decided to use a live actress in the role and make her look slightly less realistic in post-production. Pre-release publicity issued to news media actually did suggest that a completely computer-generated actress would be used.[citation needed] Rachel Roberts, the Canadian fashion model who played the role, was not initially credited in the film: she worked under the pseudonym "Anna Green" during production,[citation needed] and in the theatrical release "Simone" was credited as "herself". Her credit was added for the home video release.[citation needed]
Most of the names in the film are chosen for their link with computers. The title itself is shown to be a contraction of simulation number one, and it includes both numbers of the binary number system. Other characters in the film are named after computer companies: Corel, Claris, Dell, Hewlett, Mac and Lotus. Simone's co-star (Jay Mohr) is named Hal Sinclair, after the computer HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey and Sir Clive Sinclair, the inventor of several early commercial computers. Viktor Taransky is named after the Victor 9000. Simone is shown, near the end, to have a son named Chip (named after memory-expansion chips used in many computers for years) as she is described as contemplating a change of career to politics.
[edit] Reception
The film received a mixed critical response. Based on 154 reviews collected by the film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 51% of critics gave S1m0ne a positive review.[1] Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 49, based on 38 reviews.[2]
The film opened at #9 on the North American box office chart, grossing in US$3,813,463 in its opening weekend. The film grossed $19,576,023 worldwide.[3]
[edit] References
- ^ "S1m0ne (2002)". Rotten Tomatoes. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/s1m0ne/. Retrieved July 14, 2010.
- ^ "Simone reviews". Metacritic. http://www.metacritic.com/video/titles/simone. Retrieved July 14, 2010.
- ^ "Simone (2002)". Box Office Mojo. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=simone.htm. Retrieved July 14, 2010.
[edit] External links
- S1m0ne at the Internet Movie Database
- S1m0ne at AllRovi
- S1m0ne at Rotten Tomatoes
- S1m0ne at Box Office Mojo
- Reflections on S1m0ne by Ray Kurzweil
|
|||||
