Simone

Can you believe what you see? This film is good not because of its plot or its characters, but because it demonstrates this fascinating problem. There is also the cult of celebrity, which is true but not as important.

The name, Simone, is a contraction of Sim-ulation One and the story is a fantasy about the creation of a computer-simulated actress.

To a lesser degree than portrayed in this film, we have already seen the results of digital video imagery, simulations and replications. The development of this technology has been fun to watch bodies morphing into other bodies The Terminator (1984), human-like animation in Final Fantasy (2001) and replication for alien armies in Star War: Episode II Attack of the Clones (2002) and the victims from the Titanic (1997) falling into the sea. The motion picture industry has jumped on this opportunity to create the impossible for our entertainment, ala Spiderman (2002). The interviews on the reverse side of the DVD expose a concern that real actors could be replaced in as little as five years!

But now, consider the larger danger this story implies, i.e. mass deception. We humans tend to believe what we see with our own eyes and that is the message, the not-so-funny message of this film. CBS brought suit against NBC for replacing their logo at midnight in Times Square on New Years 2000 on real time television. Digital video techniques can superimpose whatever ad you want on the ballpark fences in real time while you watch a televised game. Rush Limbaugh went ballistic when he discovered they were collecting his pauses in speech and saving them so that more ads could be inserted. We used to worry about what was censored out. Now the real concern is about what is censored IN. Can we really sit at home and trust the media to tell us the truth?

In this film, Al Pacino plays Viktor Varansky, the frazzled, manipulative director who controls Simone. Pacino has had a checkered career on average one film a year for 33 years. He hit the big time with the Godfather films (1972, 1974, 1990) and he won a best actor Oscar for his role as the blind Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade in Scent of a Women (1992). Pacino seems to play mostly dark character parts, so for me, he wasnt the best choice for this role.

Catherine Keener plays Elaine, his ex-wife and Evan Rachel Wood plays Lainey his daughter. Both are relatively unknown actors but quite convincing in their roles. Winona Ryder has a minor role as Nicola Anders an actress competing with Simone. This was the first film for Rachel Roberts III, an unknown Canadian model, who plays Simone.

Andrew Niccol wrote and directed this film. He also wrote the screenplay for Gattaca (1997) and The Truman Show (1998). He married Rachel Roberts alias Simone alias Anna Green (for anamorphic green screen) the year that Simone was released.

The DVD interviews have some interesting information about digitizing Simone, canceling out her blinks, etc. I liked Simones line, I am the death of real.

Reviewed April 9, 2003