Dream Scenario - Movie Review
1"Dream Scenario" (2023) directed by Kristoffer Borgli is an A24 drama film with a super interesting premise. It features an extremely abrupt and unsatisfying ending but is otherwise a pretty great film that I highly recommend!
Paul Matthews (Nicolas Cage) is a very average, relatively forgettable middle aged father. Things get weird in his life once he becomes a trending topic due to an inexplicable phenomenon where everyone begins to see Paul in their dreams, usually minding his own business and not saying anything, just awkwardly standing around. Paul lets this fame get to his head and he immediately begins reaping the rewards of this new lifestyle. Things take a turn once the dreams turn into nightmares and the dream version of Paul starts hurting people in their dreams, causing Paul to become feared and socially ostracized, effectively having his life destroyed even though he has not done anything wrong.
Dream Scenario is super interesting and I've never seen anything like it before. I was quite engaged in the story and was eager to know what would happen next. Nicolas Cage is pretty much a genius in this, completely transforming himself into a living, breathing "wet blanket," which I highly respected since it shows how versatile he is as an actor. While the film is actually quite depressing, I appreciated the occasional moments of horror and comedy to mix things up and make sure the audience isn't too sad and gloomy throughout, I particularly enjoyed the, what I believe to be a meta joke with Michael Cera funny because Michael's character is all about finding obscure celebrities and getting quirky unorthodox brand deals with them, which Michael Cera literally just did himself in real life with CeraVe.
There isn't a large list of issues but there is a couple and they are somewhat major. While I generally felt bad for Paul, a huge mistake this film makes is having Paul basically cheat on his wife for no real purpose, which oddly I've now criticized in a handful of movies, most notably "Don't Look Up" (2021). This choice nearly invalidates all of the protagonist's future thoughts and feelings and makes them difficult to root for, and it's slightly concerning why this specific thing has occurred so much in many films, I am worried that the people writing films like this in the industry think this is normal, acceptable behavior because nobody in the film thinks that seriously of it or ever addresses it again, but that's just my tinfoil hat theory. The other big issue is the ending, it is so jarring, unsatisfying, and quite frankly, confusing.
Dream Scenario is pretty awesome until that bizarre cheating scene and the ending. I definitely recommend this one if not just for the fact of how weird and unique it is compared to most media released today.
Video by Rainy Nights.
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