Enlarge /. Greg (Owen Wilson) and Isabel (Salma Hayek) switch between a beautiful and an "ugly" world – but which one is real and which one is the simulation?
A depressed man questions the reality of his existence when he meets a free spirited woman who insists he inhabit a simulation in Bliss, a new film from director Mike Cahill starring Owen Wilson and Salma Hayek. Sure, it sounds like an indie riff in The Matrix, and there are some elements in common, but Bliss is very different in theme and tone and it is very much Cahill's unique vision.
(Big spoilers under the gallery. We'll give you a hint when we get there.)
As we previously reported, Cahill also made the indie science fiction film Another Earth – his first feature film – in 2011, which received a standing ovation at its premiere and won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Cahill's 2014 follow-up feature, I Origins, also won the Sloan Prize. In fact, he's the only director to have won the award twice, so he has some serious indie sci-fi movie street credits.
Another Earth story revolved around the discovery of a mirror earth planet where everyone has a doppelganger. Obviously, Cahill is interested in exploring themes of duality because he returned to that rich streak for Bliss (not to be confused with the Fantastic Fest 2019 selection of the same name).
According to the official premise: "An unfulfilled man (Wilson) and a mysterious woman (Hayek) believe that they live in a simulated reality, but when their newly discovered & # 39; Bliss & # 39; world into the & # 39; ugly & # 39; # 39; world starts to bleed, they have to decide what's real and where they really belong. "
Wilson plays Greg Whittle, a divorced woman who is stuck in a cul-de-sac. He spends most of his work not answering calls while dreaming of an idyllic world and sketching his mental images of this world. "I don't know if it's real," he muses. "But it has a feeling and the feeling is real." It is not surprising that his employer, Björn (Steve Zissis), sees this behavior badly: Despite Greg's dismissal, the two get into a nudge match and Björn hits his head on a table and is killed.
Greg escapes the office before the body is discovered and goes to the bar across the street. There he meets Hayek's Isabel. "You're real," she says, telling him that all of the people he sees outside are not real – the two are just in a simulation. To prove this, she shows how she can manipulate people and objects in this "ugly simulation".
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Isabel invites him to stay in her camp under a traffic bridge and she introduces him to a crushed yellow crystal hallucinogen. The unnamed drug enables Greg to manipulate his physical "reality" as well and convince him that Isabel is right and that this is really a simulation. But then his daughter Emily (Nesta Cooper) tracks him down – he missed her graduation – and Isabel feels threatened by this strong emotional bond. She insists that Emily is also part of the simulation and therefore not real. So she introduces Greg to a second, more powerful drug: a blue crystal that is administered through a nasal injection device. When you take it, they are thrown out of both the "ugly" world and into the idyllic world of Greg's daydreams.
(Warning: Major spoilers below. Stop reading if you haven't seen the movie yet.)
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Owen Wilson's Greg runs a dreary office.
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He finds consolation in sketching idyllic scenes.
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What if this idyllic alternate reality existed?
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He meets Isabel (Salma Hayek) in a bar and she tells him that they are in a simulation.
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Got your nose!
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Greg wakes up in another world.
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"There's my type."
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Isabel is a brilliant scientist.
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Your "brain box" lets people experience "ugly" simulations in order to better appreciate their perfect existence.
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Yeah, that's pretty ugly.
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Ah. That's better. And look at the holographic people.
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Bill Nye sighting!
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Greg's daughter Emily (Nesta Cooper) asks him to choose between his worlds.
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But is Emily part of the simulation too?
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Hijinks on the ugly world runway.
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Things get mixed up in the ugly world.
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In particular, Greg wakes up in a laboratory. It's connected to a huge computer called the Brain Box. Isabel invented it to "integrate people into ugly simulated worlds to create appreciation for the real world". Greg doesn't remember much of the "real" brain boxing world he's now experiencing, but he soon settled in as the romance blossoms with Isabel. But at some point, aspects of the "ugly" world seep through, including a ghostly figure of Emily begging Greg to come back to her.
It's the on-screen chemistry between Wilson and Hayek and the way they work out their respective roles that anchors the film, backed up by a solid script and resourceful VFX. These effects are based more on actual photography than CGI (although there are definitely some CGI out there). Take, for example, the holograms of people projecting onto the streets of the Brain Box world. According to VFX supervisor Luke DiTommasso, Cahill insisted that these shouldn't resemble the famous hologram of Princess Leia in Star Wars: A New Hope. Instead, the look was based on photography, where the lens effects of the rainbow prism were used to create natural chromatic aberration that gives the characters a ghostly quality.
Especially when the worlds start to mix, it might have been easier to just use CGI. Instead, the DiTomasso team used Cahill's creative (and consistent) set design and long tracking shots to create the illusion of mixing properties, supplemented here and there with CG elements as needed. Not only did this help cut production costs, the end result felt more realistic – and both worlds need to feel reasonably realistic for the movie's central imagination to work. "If you can shoot something, shoot something," DiTommasso told Ars of his philosophy on CGI. "If you need a duck crossing a street, let's shoot a duck crossing a street. If you need a duck to dance and sing, we need CGI." (There are no dancing singing ducks in Bliss.)
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So what world is real and what is the simulation? That is the question. Cahill opts for ambiguity in this regard; one can interpret the ending in different ways. In the true sense of the word, Greg is an addict whose drug use estranged his family and fired him. He and Isabel, a homeless addict who lives under the traffic bridge, get into a hallucinogenic drug frenzy. Their shared experience of manipulating elements of the "ugly" world and being in brain box paradise is part of a drug-induced film a deux. But the high subsides and the two worlds begin to collide, forcing Greg to make a choice: stay with Isabel in their shared dream world, or stop chasing the bliss and stay with his daughter in the "ugly" world.
Ugly
There is strong evidence for this interpretation. Isabel is becoming increasingly loose and showing classic addict behavior. In the brain box world there is a strong whiff of wish-fulfillment fantasy. In the end, Greg gives up the imagination and chooses the "ugly", "real" world, even when attending his first 12-step meeting. He tries to rebuild his life and relationships after learning to see beauty in the "ugly" world too.
But there are other elements that are not easy to explain, such as what ultimately happens to Isabel, who last saw several armed police officers snort the last dose of blue crystal. Was she shot? Or was she right that the "ugly" world was a simulation and she got back to the Brian Boxing world in time? In this alternate rendition, Greg remains in the "ugly" simulation of being with his daughter – ready to make that sacrifice because his love for her is real, even when she is not.
Or maybe reality is determined by the world we ultimately choose. In this case, both the "ugly" and Brian box areas are "real". How could you ever be really sure? The director's willingness to immerse his audience in all of these uncertainties makes Bliss Cahill's strongest and most ambitious film yet.
Bliss is currently streamed on Amazon Prime.
