Wiley Wiggins keeps waking up to find himself still in the dream state, while he is dreaming he begins to discover and unfold answers to the most broad philosophical questions. The character Alex Jones deals with situationism. He hooks up a microphone and speaker to his car and drives around the town ranting about how we are all turning into slaves because of political systems and control. Julie Deply and Ethan Hawke lay in bed with each other discussing Taoism and dreaming. They talk about mutiple consciousnesses, collective memory, death and dreaming. Wiley Wiggins comes across Richard Linklater playing arcade pinball, he tells Wiley that there is only one instant and it is right now. God invites us to eternity and there is only one story, which is meaning from the No to the Yes.
I believe Richard Linklater's idea of rotoscoping the film was very unique and a great idea. It was not done out of the sake of doing it just to do it. The movie is about Wiley Wiggins dreaming. The animation of the film illustrates exactly how dreams look like. I found this a very effective method; the film goes from one location to another, very similar to a dream.
I ended up enjoying the film from start to finish. There is never a dull moment in Waking Life. Not only was the production side of the film interesting to me (rotoscoping) but the broad philosophical questions answered in the film were interesting as well. I believe that anyone who is mature enough to understand the concept of philosophy and metaphysics would very much enjoy the film.