I love Philip K. Dick, the author of the novel from which this film is derived, and have followed all the various film adaptations with interest for many years. Some have been very good, some less so, some faithful to at least the spirit of the source material, some less so. I was thrilled to find this on Netflix, since it is one of his major works, in my opinion. I really wanted to like it. I wanted it to be good. It was not. I honor the intention to be faithful to the book, and it was, much more so than, say, Blade Runner, although BR is by far the superior movie. But this was poorly paced, flat, plodding, monotonous, and unrealistic. I realize this last may seem odd given the plot and theme, but lots of movies are about fantastical concepts and still manage to be realistic, in the sense that they create a coherent, consistent reality around those concepts and play out the story with verve and imagination, qualities this adaption lacked. The dream sequences were cheesy. Although Alanis Morissette brought some star power to the proceedings, and she was very good, the acting was poor. The direction left weird gaps in the sequences. The seams showed in this production. One pet peeve: I realize their budget was probably small, but could they not afford a few establishing shots of Berkeley? They kept saying they were in Berkeley, and then showing shots of a city clearly not Berkeley. It's a pretty iconic location, all you need is a few shots of the campus, the campanile, and the bay. This is indicative of the lapses and lack of imagination in this adaptation of a work of supreme imagination.