S1mØne

Actors have long been getting in a lather at the idea that the movies might one day dispense with their services entirely, so the 'what if?' scenario proposed by writer/director Niccol seems a little off the shelf. But its execution feels so thrown together you'd swear the film must have been written yesterday. Viktor Taransky (Pacino), a self-regarding Hollywood auteur, is belatedly brought to earth when his star actress (Ryder) quits their set over a trailer-size transgression, whereupon his ex-wife and studio boss (Keener) feels duty bound to pull the plug. Enter Simone (née Simulation One), a digital deus ex machina handed to him on a disc by Koteas' terminally ill geek. Sure enough, Taransky hunkers down with his programmable actress (actually model Rachel Roberts), and maybe nine months later, all the world is fawning over his new screen 'discovery'. The rest of the movie is an extended entertainment industry jerk-off, high on fantasies of an insatiably gullible public, low on real world affinity, with a shaggy dog plot stretched as thin as Taransky's scary teenage daughter.