Bliss

Disgruntled executive Owen Wilson is in a post-divorce tailspin in this sci-fi-infused drama from writer/director Mike Cahill (Another Earth). On the run from an accidental murder, Wilson becomes entangled with a mysterious homeless woman (Salma Hayek), who warns him that most people around him are actually fake projections. She proffers luminous drugs to give him superpowers, prefacing a head-spinning adventure in which shades of The Matrix abound. But instead of some grandiose dystopian vision, Bliss really tells a story about the inner life, and how many of us fall into addictions that promise an escape from the humdrum. Such insights ring of bitter truth, though the film's guiding ideas are stronger than the drama itself, which sags a little when nothing we see appears very real. Still, Wilson is amiably befuddled, and even if Bliss doesn't wholly deliver, its sheer creative energy is, in itself, invigorating.