I feel sure that this book is worth reviewing, but I'm at kind of a loss as to what to say about it. Eve Ensler, a playwright and activist, began the Monologues based on a series of interviews with women-about vaginas, about womanhood, about femininity, about sex and babies and clothes and just about anything else that might be on a vagina's mind. The monologues themselves are short vignettes written for a solo performer, or in many cases, a series of solo performers. They range from disturbing to titillating, hilarious to cheesy, and over a whole slough of other emotions. They are also a work in progress, with some of the currently published monologues being inspired after the original set was already being performed.
The laundry list I have just presented could have come straight off the book jacket and out of the introduction. Actually reading the Monologues is altogether different. What is it like to eat a bag of those jelly beans that taste like things like popcorn and raisins and cola and cotton candy? Seeing them performed is also very different, though I have to admit that the staging I saw was so poorly done that I almost didn't read the book out of sheer spite.
One of the most refreshing things about the Monologues is that they are more true to their artistic parent than to their political one. Ensler's politics are clear and unmitigated, but the Monologues themselves are not a series of lectures in her brand of feminism. The other most refreshing thing about the Monologues is that even people without vaginas can enjoy them. Now all we need is for some brave and nimble soul to take a tape recorder and start work on the Penis Monologues.
I don't remember which book it was in, but in one of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books, the author reaches a reasonable book length and suddenly kills all the characters in one random swoop. Then he brings them all back at the beginning of the next book with an equally random twist of fate. Vanilla Sky is great if you like that kind of thing. Frankly, I don't. Tom Cruise plays a wealthy playboy and publishing tycoon who inherited everything from his nose-to-the-grindstone father. He has it all, including Cameron Diaz to shag whenever he wants. Of course it is too good to last, and his fall from grace would be unbearably predictable and boring if it were not for two things, one good and one bad: the good thing is Penélope Cruz; the bad thing is the surprise twist ending.
I'll admit that there were a few times when I genuinely wondered what the hell was going on, and the plot idea had a lot of potential. But I can say that because that potential has already been realized by a Philip Dick (who wrote Do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep which inspired the movie Bladerunner) book called Ubik. But Ubik manages to stretch the boundaries between real and imagined without needing to be rescued by a deus-ex-machina (in this case, the nerdy guy from Tomb Raider in an elevator). Vanilla Sky's final resolution is so swift and complete--and so full of new information to tie up the loose ends--that you don't feel fooled but simply lied to. It made me wonder if all the actors hadn't died suddenly of food poisoning a month before they finished shooting, forcing the director to patch something together with leftover footage. Or maybe they're all still alive and that's what the director did anyway.
Just so this is not a completely negative review, I'll point out one subtle and clever effect: the sky. If you must watch this movie, keep an eye on that sky.
