Simone (2002 film)

File:S1m0ne film.jpg

S1m0ne film poster

S1M0NE, also seen as Simone, is a 2002 science fiction drama film written, produced and directed by New Zealander Andrew Niccol, starring Al Pacino.

Cast

• Al Pacino - Viktor Taransky
• Benjamin Salisbury - P.A.
• Winona Ryder - Nicola Anders
• Darnell Williams - Studio Executive
• Jim Rash - Studio Executive
• Ron Perkins - Studio Executive
• Jay Mohr - Hal Sinclair
• Catherine Keener - Elaine Christian
• Evan Rachel Wood - Lainey Christian
• Jeffrey Pierce - Kent
• Rachel Roberts - Simone (as Simone)
• Anthony Begonia - (uncredited research)

Plot

When the main star of disillusioned director Viktor Taransky's new movie walks away, Taransky is forced to find a replacement or never work again. Unfortunately for him, nobody wants to work with him any more.

Viktor tries a new computer program on a hard disk he inherited from his acquaintance Hank Aleno (whom Viktor has only met twice: at a conference eight years earlier and just before Aleno dies). Viktor uses the program as a last, desperate attempt to finish the film. The system allows him to use a computer-generated woman to play the movie's central character. Viktor names his synthetic actress "Simone", a name derived from the computer program's title, "Simulation One". Seamlessly incorporated into the movie, Simone gives a fantastic performance. The studio, and soon the world, starts to ask "who is Simone?"—the entire world thinking that she is a real person.

It soon becomes clear that Simone is a star, and Viktor decides not to mention that she is computer-generated. However, his scheme quickly spirals out of control as he has to try and make her have some elements of a real life too in order to maintain his story.

Getting sick of the attention she needs, and thus having to come up with the fake interviews and attend press conferences, he decides to kill her off, hoping that his regained fame would carry through without her. Having failed in his first attempt he tries again, only to get arrested for her murder.

Eventually, and with the help of his family, he decides to keep Simone "alive" and even starts a virtual family with her.

Reviews and box office

Critics generally panned the movie -- Metacritic reports that the average reviewer scored the film 49/100.

The movie was also a financial failure. Opening weekend saw poor sales of $3.8 million from nearly 2,000 theaters. S1m0ne ended up with $19,576,023 worldwide, which was among Al Pacino's lowest grossing movies.

Trivia

Most of the names in the film are chosen for their link with computers. The title could be interpreted as "simulation number one" and 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 costar (Jay Mohr) is named Hal Sinclair, after the computer HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Viktor Taransky is named after Victor Frankenstein, a character which he could easily be likened to, and fugitive film director Roman Polanski.

Viktor is based on Ray Kurzweil, and the movie is based on Kurzweil's 2001 TED Conference presentation of his female alter ego, Ramona. The scene in which Viktor performs a concert is modeled very closely with Kurzweil's Ramona presentation.

The film producers thought of using an actual computer-generated character to play the part of Simone. After discussions with the Screen Actors Guild, who were worried that the replacement of all actors would be the next inevitable step, they decided to use an unknown 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. Rachel Roberts, the Canadian fashion model who played the role, was not initially credited in the movie (her credit was added for the home video release; in the theatrical release "Simone" was credited as "herself"), and she worked under the pseudonym "Anna Green" during production.

S1m0ne is currently the most recent use of the Pygmalion motif. Indeed there is an explicit (albeit quick) reference to this in the film in a scene that shows Viktor's daughter reading a webpage on Pygmalion on her laptop.

External link

• S1m0ne at IMDb
• Reflections on S1m0ne by Ray Kurzweil