Vanilla Sky Ending: Every Frame Explained

2. Time To Wake Up

The final image in the entire montage is one that really pulls the whole thing together thematically - a short clip of a young Tom Cruise swimming with his mother with both of them waving at the camera.

This is important for two reasons - firstly, this is literally a younger David waving at his older self, letting him know it's time to wake up, and also represents David waving at us, the audience, acknowledging his newfound knowledge of our presence as observers.

After all, mere minutes earlier Tech Support (Noah Taylor) made it clear to David that a "panel of observers" were watching his decisions play out, at which point David stared directly at the audience.

It all adds up to a gloriously meta ending, culminating in David opening his eyes within his new reality - better still, a reality we're not allowed to see.