Bliss

Bliss is a 2021 American science fiction film written and directed by Mike Cahill and starring Owen Wilson and Salma Hayek. It was released on Amazon Prime in February 2021.

Plot
Greg Wittle (Owen Wilson), recently divorced, spends his work hours daydreaming and drawing pictures of an idyllic coastal retreat. As a result he is fired from his job, but during this process pushes his boss, Bjorn, accidentally killing him when Bjorn's head hits a table. Panicking, he conceals Bjorn's body behind some curtains before leaving the office for the bar across the street. There he meets Isabel (Salma Hayek), a seemingly homeless woman who appears to know what he has done, indicating Bjorn's body against the window. She speaks about having created this world with unintended consequences. As they watch, the window slips open and the body falls to the ground, causing onlookers to think Bjorn jumped to his death. Isabel drags Greg away, telling him he needs to lay low to avoid becoming a subject for the police, and to avoid all contact with his family. She sells off his phone and other possessions to get them some cash.

Isabel then takes Greg to a tented area she has under a traffic bridge, and they get to know each other more. He shares his drawings with her, and she offers him a small amount of a crushed yellow crystal (an unidentified hallucinogen) that will help make him feel good. Greg finds that with the crystal, he is able to manipulate the world to a degree such as by telekinetically tripping up other skaters at a roller rink. Greg wakes up the following day attached to a giant computer along with several others including Isabel, being monitored by several scientists. As he recovers, he learns that he has been experiencing a simulation within the computer, a Brain Box created by Isabel to study alternate realities and their effects on the human brain. Isabel reveals that they are a couple in this real world and takes Greg home, showing him that his drawings were recreations of this setting. Greg still doesn't remember much of this world, and Isabel explains that after a long dark period of poverty, synthetic biology and asteroid mining eliminated most of the problems on Earth and allowed humanity to flourish with scientific achievement. She herself wanted to explore the human mind, thus creating the Brain Box. Greg is still confused since he has not regained any further memories of this world and still has vivid memories of the simulation including his daughter Emily (Nesta Cooper), but Isabel warns him the simulation may pull such tricks on the user.

Why It Sucks

 * 1) The film has a laughably bad plot that is really just a rip-off of The Matrix, just in a new context.
 * 2) Very confusing tone, with a mix of drama, comedy, and disaster film tropes all mixed in one mediocre film. While genre-blending has worked fine in other contexts, this film doesn't do it well because it doesn't know what it wants to be.
 * 3) Lackluster acting, especially from Salma Hayek, and a very random cameo from Bill Nye the Science Guy playing himself.
 * 4) The simulation plot is very confusing, as when Greg wakes up in the "real world," it's still ambiguous as to which world is the real world, with no explanation from anyone, just Isabel continuing to drug him for no reason.
 * 5) The sub-plot of Emily trying to find her father after Isabel takes him away is completely ignored in the second half of the film, with her not contributing anything to the plot.
 * 6) There are multiple filler moments throughout that could have easily been removed from the film without affecting the plot.
 * 7) Poorly written script that sounds like it was written by someone who watched the Matrix films while they were on drugs.
 * 8) Multiple bland and clichéd lines from Greg and Isabel. In fact, this dialogue is one of the worst parts of the film.
 * 9) Poor chemistry between the cast, especially apparent in the second half.
 * 10) Several plot holes that go unexplored, including who was framed for the death of Greg's boss and what happened to the world before the asteroid.
 * 11) Extremely forced emotional moments.
 * 12) Kendo, the drug dealer, is a very bland villain with no real motivation aside from doing crime for fun. The question of whether he is real or not is never answered.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Decent acting from Owen Wilson and Nesta Cooper.
 * 2) A very good soundtrack from Fall on Your Sword, the band that also worked on Cahill's other films.
 * 3) The idea of synthetic biology in futuristic worlds, which hasn't really been explored yet in a lot of movies, is a cool one.
 * 4) Very good camera work, with some of the well-shot scenes being the best parts of the film.
 * 5) The opening narration is nice, and the opening credits under that narration, featuring a drawing of Greg's "real-world" house, is additionally well-shot.

Reception
Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 30% approval rating based on 88 reviews. The website's critics consensus reads: "When it comes to building an entertaining sci-fi film around some cool ideas, this Bliss is largely ignorant." Metacritic sampled 14 critics and calculated a weighted average score of 34 out of 100, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews."

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