Simone is a rather half-hearted effort to comment on the farces that are Hollywood and the national media and perhaps scare some actors into being more amenable on the set. Al Pacino is a never-was, strictly art-house-only director (whose name, Viktor Taransky, sounds suspiciously like Andrei Tarkovsky and whose films look about as deadly) who creates a computer-generated actress because his real-life one (vividly embodied by Winona Ryder) storms off the set in a fit of pique. Simone (as he names her, for Simulation One) becomes a media sensation and, in a turn that you would never see coming (excuse me while I wipe up the sarcasm dripping from those words), eclipses her creator and gain control of the relationship. (And just in case you didn’t get that from all the innumerable scenes of her getting more attention than Pacino, the script has Pacino announce it in pretty much those words.)
Director Andrew Niccol must think we’re all half-wits who are adorably naïve in the ways of celebrity, because there is no way on this green earth that anyone could hide that Simone isn’t real, least of all through the dopey tricks that Pacino employs. Coupled with the utterly unbelievable ease with which Simone is created and altered, it makes for way too much of a suspension of disbelief. And don’t get me started on how a vacuous, dreary art picture could suddenly turn out to be a hit just because of one good performance.
Speaking of good performances, Pacino, fortunately, dials it down and hardly ever bellows. His weary, sagging face alone invokes just the right characterization. Poor Catherine Keener trots out another variation on her “bitter career gal” character (she even makes her daughter dress like she’s on her way to a board meeting), and Jay Mohr does his preening narcissist again (don’t hurt yourself stretchin’ there, buddy!). It’s enough to make you think it’s typecasting.
Parts of Simone are funny, and though
it’s
about twenty minutes too long, it mostly didn’t bore me. It’s a
shining
example of mediocrity and platitude disguised as edginess.
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