A mind-bending love story following Greg who, after recently being divorced and then fired, meets the mysterious Isabel, a woman living on the streets and convinced that the polluted, broken world around them is a computer simulation.
Not the good, the bad, and the ugly, just the good and the bad. Good is seeing Owen Wilson on screen and in the perfect role as a hapless dreamer stuck drawing pictures of what bliss would look like to him, while the clock is ticking down on his dreary existence. Post-divorce he is banished by his adult son, separated from his much-adored daughter, living in a drab motel, and working at a job so meaningless and monotonous, we can’t begin to guess what he does there. Well, turns out, what he does there is draw picture after picture of a place he can see in his mind that embodies happiness, even euphoria. Wilson is actually quite good as the sad sack who can’t stand up to his tormentors and is apparently incapable of having a real conversation on the phone with the daughter he loves.
Salma Hayek is back for this movie, though I’m not sure what the draw was for her and Wilson. This is another “alternate reality,” shot across the bow, and let’s just be honest here, for that format to work and be halfway believable, is a tough row to hoe. Apparently, Mike Cahill, who both wrote and directed the film, either found that out or thinks the plot is perfectly and understandably straightforward and thought-provoking. Now there’s an age-old saying in theatre that a playwright should never direct his own written play. That may have caught up with Cahill here, in that perhaps he assumes, incorrectly I think, that what was curling around the wonderful ideas in his writer’s brain, will automatically translate to his audience. Therefore, what then may transpire is literally chunks of the necessary expository material is left out as the director/writer has known forever what is contained therein and forgets that his audience has no clue and no trail of crumbs to follow an ever bending, twisting plot. That’s the problem with “Bliss,” there are so many similarities to other (and better) films in this alternate universe genre that the audience may suddenly find they are feeling deja vu “all over again.”
After seeing the “real” world and the world of eternal happiness, which to choose is, of course, the question, as you knew it would be. Yes, but Bill Nye, as Chris, let’s us all in on a little secret. The rapturous world is beginning to “fade” or “bleed” over into the not-so-nice world of us non-real folks. Yeah, that rapturous world is a little too sold on itself and doesn’t want to traffic with the nasty everyday fake people. What to do. Especially after Wilson’s character, Greg, is told by Isabel (Hayek) that his daughter isn’t real. She is part of the ugly alternate, un-real world. Monkeywrench!
I also can’t write this review without mentioning poor Hayek’s costume that she first appears in. I can’t believe someone talked her into that mess. Her hair looked like an animal had died in it and had been just incorporated into the style, if that word applies in any ghouly way. But a minor point while all around her, and Mr. Wilson, the plot stalled and then languished, then died a slow, predictable death. If you have Amazon Prime, this is your, sort of, freebie. I watched it for you. My recommendation would be watching “Bliss” would add up to two hours of your time you will never get back.
Premieres exclusively on Amazon Prime Video Friday, February 5th
