Simone

Director and writer Andrew Nicol has only a few scripts and movies in his record, but all are memorable. He wrote and directed 'Gattaca', wrote 'The Truman Show' script, and here he is again both writing and directing with 'S1m0ne'. It is seldom that one director chooses his films in such a focused manner, and in his case it certainly pays back.

'S1m0ne' is another story about Hollywood, but a really original one. Since the film was released the first completely virtual film became reality, and some of the best movies of 2002 combine real actors and fantastic computer generated characters. Is this a threat to the big star system? This is the main theme of the movie. The second, and maybe even more important is the cult for icons, the morbid fascination of the public with the life of celebrities. The two themes play well together, combined with the excellent portrait that Al Pacino creates for his Faustian director.

I liked the movie. It has enough interesting material to keep the interest. The weaker points are the length - yet another film which would have benefit if it was 10-15 minutes shorter - and the final which is too conventional relative to the originality of the rest of the script.

8/10 on my personal scale - go and see or rent it, you will not be disappointed.