SIMONE

Preview Screening

The dream of film execs everywhere - to get rid of those pesky actors with their exorbitant demands and huge salaries and fragile psyches - is examined thoughtfully and wittily by Andrew Niccol in his new film, Simone. Al Pacino plays Viktor Taransky, an arty director with troubles, as his film deal is ended through his loss of the latest actress du jour. Like a modern Pygmalion, he ends up creating the perfect actress for his film, Simone, the ultimate CGI (played by model Rachel Roberts). The success of the Viktor's film, primarily due to Simone, combined with her apparent reclusiveness, lead her to become the most famous and sought after human on the planet. The resultant fame of this figment of the imagination, and the affect on Viktor, propels the narrative and examines aspects of fame and art and reality.

Synthespians, or vactors, or whatever cute name they concoct for virtual film stars, provide an interesting premise for a movie. Personally, Jar Jar Binks destroyed any belief I had that digital characters would take the place of real actors (meesa thinka him crappa), but writer and director Niccol plays interestingly with the idea of the ultimate actor. The story, which sometimes takes liberties with what a computer can actually do, as well as with the level of fame achieved via a gullible media (a star never seen in person on the cover of every magazine in the world, but nobody figured out she isn't real?), sometimes veers dangerously towards navel-gazing territory, as Viktor, the tortured artist, ponders aloud the morality of the situation and the meaning behind it all. This might be seen as self-indulgent because who, apart from some people in Hollywood, really cares about the possibility of human actors being replaced? However, this aspect of the film is tempered by a wonderful sense of humour, as actors, producers, the media and the situation are all mocked mercilessly (the driest joke comes when Simone sings 'A Natural Woman.')

The film is fun, thought provoking without getting heavy, and the real actors hit the spot, with Pacino in absorbing form. Niccol, writer of The Truman Show, and writer/director of Gattaca, once again displays an ability to turn an interesting idea into a very watchable movie, without flash or Oscar-baiting. Simone; virtual actress, real film.

Rating: VID