Bliss (2021) – Movie Review
After being divorced and losing his wife, his family and then his job, Greg Wittle’s (Owen Wilson) life reaches an all-time low. But after meeting a mysterious woman named Isabel (Salma Hayek) with superpowers, she tells him that they are in a simulation. Conflicted and caught between the two worlds, Greg must choose which one to believe in.
Bliss was an interesting concept. It wasn’t simply a Matrix copy like the trailer made it out to be but had its own unique idea. It wasn’t quite a sci-fi movie, but instead a drama about the harsh reality of the world and the need to escape it.
My biggest gripe with the movie was that it was left too ambiguous. It never confirmed if the ugly world was real or if the futuristic paradise world was real. And throughout the movie, there were clues supported both as fake and both as real. Personally, I’m not the biggest fan of ambiguous movie endings. If they are done right like Inception, sure. But I prefer to see the entire story come full circle as opposed to leaving it up to interpretation. But maybe the point of the unexplained ending was that it’s not about which world was actually real but about the real world is the one you chose to believe in.
Something that was interesting about the film is, in the end, I was unsure what had actually happened and what had not. Like the protagonist, the audience is left confused to the point I’m not 100 percent sure which world was real and what had really happened or not. This seemed to play into the idea of drug addiction and mental illness, allowing the audience to step into the shoes of those who struggle with them.
Watching Bliss, I wasn’t exactly sure how to feel about it. It wasn’t great but it was definitely an interesting story. It seemed familiar yet unique. I knew at the halfway point that based on the ending, the film would either be pretty good or pretty bad. Surprisingly, it landed right in the middle for me and I would rate it 3/5 stars. If you like mind-bending movies with ambiguous endings, consider checking this one out. Plus, there was a surprise cameo from Bill Nye, so that’s a bonus.
