Bliss is a mind-bending love story following Greg (Owen Wilson) who, after recently being divorced and then fired, meets the mysterious Isabel (Salma Hayek), a woman living on the streets and convinced that the polluted, broken world around them is just a computer simulation. Doubtful at first, Greg eventually discovers there may be some truth to Isabel's wild conspiracy.... (Full plot summary below)
FREE with your Prime (USA) subscription or when you start a 30-day free trial!
Bliss is a mind-bending love story following Greg (Owen Wilson) who, after recently being divorced and then fired, meets the mysterious Isabel (Salma Hayek), a woman living on the streets and convinced that the polluted, broken world around them is just a computer simulation. Doubtful at first, Greg eventually discovers there may be some truth to Isabel's wild conspiracy.
Leave your thoughts about Bliss.
| UproxxVince ManciniCahill is so effective at blurring the lines and making both “realities” feel equally plausible that it’s hard not to feel your own reality attenuating as you watch it. Owen Wilson and Salma Hayek, something of an odd couple on paper, are also perfectly cast. |
| San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleUltimately, no matter what angle you see Bliss from, the story converges on a choice and a question: Which world do you choose to live in? And what can bring a person back to reality? |
| Washington PostMichael O'SullivanBliss isn’t really all that interested in trafficking in the stuff of mass-market science fiction: the bells and whistles, in the form of nifty hardware, special effects and the like. Rather, Cahill’s latest film is an exercise in existential inquiry. |
| The Irish TimesTara BradyExpect head-scratching, some non-sequiturs and lots of quirks and Bliss will mostly entertain and consistently baffle. |
| The TelegraphTim RobeyStrip away the wiring, and Cahill’s film connects most tangibly as a fable about drug addiction – hardly a shock, with all the crystal-obsessed scurrying to make one grey reality bearable, or switch to another outright. He’s had more ingenious ideas, but the whole thing’s strangely charming. |
| The A.V. ClubAlex SavelievThe convoluted movie feels like a bunch of grandiose ideas in search of a connecting thread. Perhaps Cahill needs to reconnect with his indie roots to get his creative bliss back. |
| ReelViewsJames BerardinelliWith its blend of existential science fiction and character-based romance, it would seem to be as close to a can’t-miss premise as one can imagine yet, despite that, it somehow does miss – and by a wide margin. |
| RogerEbert.comNick AllenBliss is far more kooky and tedious than it is good, and it's so confusing that even the movie's sense of humor is a question mark. |
| Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsI wish the results were better, and a lot stranger. Cahill’s world-building has its moments, though. And the filmmaker did determine — correctly — that it’d be fun to have Bill Nye, the science guy, in a bow tie, portraying a sniffy scientific researcher. |
| Screen RantMae AbdulbakiWritten and directed by Mike Cahill, Bliss has strong ideas about economic inequality and it ambitiously works to pull off being a sci-fi thriller that is layered with social commentary. However, the film falls short of delivering something more compelling and complex, primarily because it's trying to do too much at once. |
