Needing a hit, a desperate producer digitally creates an actress to sub for the real actress who walked off the set of his latest picture. It's not long before the creation titled Simone becomes a hit and the public can't get enough of her because producer Taransky can't allow anyone to know that she isn't real. Of course, the public can't resist something they know so little about so the press is continually hounding Taransky about Simone. He can't get himself to admit the fraud to his family or the world because of what that could do to his skyrocketing career. Simone stars Al Pacino, Catherine Keener, Evan Rachel Wood, Winona Ryder, and Rachel Roberts. The film is directed by Andrew Niccol of Gattaca fame.
This film is a mixture of the drama and comedy genres that doesn't really succeed in being one or the other because of its tendency to resort to cheap tactics to elicit a laugh from the audience and its way of sidestepping interesting dramatic interests such as the superficial nature of Hollywood as a whole. I guess that Niccol can't really afford to bite the hand that feeds him, so to speak.
The comedic aspects of the film involve slapstick bits such as a group of people falling into a pool and Pacino holding up a dummy of Simone while talking through a voice synthesizer while driving a car. Funny? I don't think so. Also a problem is that Al Pacino isn't and never will be a comedian. He is simply not funny enough himself to carry the film. His conversations with his creation come across as trite and predictable instead of sharp and witty like they are intended to be. The rest of the cast also struggles with the inferior comedy material with Catherine Keener proving to be weaker than I expected from such a dependable performer as her. Fourteen-year-old Evan Rachel Wood is the lone bright spot in the entire film because she's the only actor that performs with energy instead of going through the motions like Keener and Pacino do in the film.
Overall, Simone is a pathetic attempt at melding comedy with drama in a Hollywood setting. Andrew Niccol's attempts at satire towards his profession come across as feeble and not nearly as biting as they need to be for this type of film to be successful. The only positive in the entire film is the performance of young Rachel Evan Wood but she alone can't save this film from the dumpster because Simone is a horrible misfire of a film.
Rating: 62
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