When college professor Paul Matthews (Nicolas Cage) begins showing up in people’s dreams, he steps directly into the limelight. While fame may initially seem like a dream come true, this Dream Scenario is far from what Paul and his family could have expected.
At the time of writing this it’s been a week since I’d seen the film, and it legitimately took me that long to mull the entirety of the film over and attempt to understand all that had transpired throughout the course of Dream Scenario. This film is incredibly fractured, struggling to adhere to a standard narrative structure, and, yet, it manages to get its point across. In a lot of ways Dream Scenario is sort of a messy shit show, struggling to find its footing, struggling to stick to one linear story. Viewers bounce around from place to place, between fiction and reality, and it’s sometimes challenging to understand where exactly you are in the film and in Paul’s narrative. Again, with all of that being said, Dream Scenario does a pretty remarkable job of ensuring that viewers eventually understand the point of the film (even if it does take days to arrive at a conclusion).
There is a subtle grotesqueness that exists throughout the course of Dream Scenario, and I believe that this is what ultimately appeals to viewers. Through this part of the film, honesty reigns supreme, and viewers are forced to dissect a film that so brilliantly captures reality, that so brilliantly reminds us of the real world (even when we exist in those dream sequences). In nearly every moment of Dream Scenario viewers see or hear something left of center (or at least something different than what we may have expected)–and it almost always causes viewers to cringe. There’s something about that, something appealing. I like seeing these things, because they allowed me to question the validity of the things being said and done throughout the film, and it allowed me to question the reality of the world in which we live. It’s that aesthetic, the one that exists throughout the entirety of Dream Scenario, that allows the film to find success.
I genuinely like this film, and Cage does a wonderful job of playing the awkward, interestingly likable Paul as he struggles through the normal and not-so-normal parts of life (honestly, this may be one of Cage’s best performances to date). However, I have a major issue with the way in which his character develops throughout Dream Scenario. I completely understand the fact that he would, more than likely, make some questionable decisions after discovering fame for the first time–but the majority of Dream Scenario looks to humanize him in a way that makes him likable, and about halfway through the film Paul makes a decision that alters the trajectory of his life forever. In this moment, as intriguing as the scene is (and if you’ve seen the film then you know which scene I’m talking about), the writing fails Dream Scenario. Paul changes, and it becomes difficult to root for him anymore, it becomes difficult to appreciate his struggle.
With everything that I’ve said about the storyline being frumpy and fractured and with Paul’s trajectory being negatively altered as we near the end of the second act, Dream Scenario is well written, honing in on real ideas and transporting viewers to a world that is so incredibly similar to ours, but just different enough to allow us to look around and see what needs to and can be changed. Writer-Director Kristoffer Borgli brings to life something interestingly spectacular and larger than life, but brilliantly grounded and accessible. Dream Scenario surely needs some tweaks when it comes to the writing and the direction in which Paul heads before the film concludes, but it’s an overall fun film that is geared toward finding massive success.
Written & Directed by Kristoffer Borgli.
Starring Nicolas Cage, Julianne Nicholson, Lily Bird, Jessica Clement, Michael Cera, Tim Meadows, Dylan Baker, Dylan Gelula, Kate Berlant, etc.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/10
