[4.1]
Sometimes an idea is enough. DREAM SCENARIO boasts such a fun, quirky high-concept premise that when the film descends into a tonal mess of a third act, it only minimally tarnishes the excellence that has come before. Writer/director/editor Kristoffer Borgli manages the enviable task of creating a movie worthy of Nicholas Cage’s talents. Too often, a film is only interesting because of Cage, and even then, because a director has allowed Cage to completely overwhelm the picture. But Borgli brings Cage back into ADAPTATION territory, and Cage’s anxious, self-deprecating, near-obnoxious character traits are comic bliss. There are a few explosive moments, but Cage mostly gives a delightfully cagey, insular, and tragic performance. Biology professor Paul Matthews is a completely forgettable nobody, a fact that side characters keep emphasizing to him. He imagines himself standing up to an old colleague that he suspects of stealing his ideas, but instead he collapses into a whimpering, nasally mess, begging to be credited (the editing of this is perfectly hilarious and heart-wrenching, as Borgli cuts from the actual interaction to a shot of Paul listening to the rest of the conversation from a phone recording, and we watch his disgusted and ashamed reaction to his own behavior). This seems to change as Paul becomes famous for mysteriously appearing in thousands of people’s dreams. But this sudden blast of notoriety can’t change Paul’s true nature. In a “rock bottom” moment, Paul goes to ad-exec Molly’s house because she wants to live out the sexual fantasy she dreamed about with him. But instead of being able to match the virility and sexual dominance of dream-Paul, real-Paul lets out a series of farts and prematurely ejaculates before Molly can even get his pants down. It’s spectacularly awkward and hilarious, but Borgli immediately makes us uncomfortable with our own reaction, as Cage’s face twists into that of a wounded animal, caught in the crosshairs of a hunter. It’s an easy humiliation (something at home in a Todd Solandz flick), but Borgli strikes a delicate balance of mocking Paul while also forcing us to feel both complicit and sympathetic in his torture.
After being sexually and professionally dismissed (his colleague publishes her groundbreaking article, emphatically using the scientific term Paul coined but now gets no credit for), Paul’s amusingly passive appearance in people’s dreams shifts into horror territory. Dream-Pauls begin attacking their dreamers, and soon he is forced out of his job because the students are too traumatized to see him in person anymore. The ad agency (run by a sleazy guru-wannabe played by Michael Cera) no longer wants to use Paul for campaigns with Sprite and Obama, but instead suggests he pivots to cranky anti-woke guest on Joe Rogan or Tucker Carlson shows. His daughter’s school bans him from attending her play, leading him to storming in and accidentally ‘attacking’ a teacher. Here, the film shifts oddly into hard-edged satire, showing several minutes of an advertisement for a new dream device that allows influencers to directly go into people’s minds to hawk their products. We learn that the story has advanced slightly into the future, where Paul no longer appears in people’s dreams and has been mostly forgotten (except in France). He is estranged from his family and goes on a book tour of Europe, but not for the breakthrough biology text he had been endlessly talking about, but instead for a rather thin autobiography “I am Your Nightmare”. Paul had actually titled the book “Dream Scenario” but the publishers changed it, and instead of doing anything about it, Paul meekly accepts the mistake and continues with the signing. The final scene shows Paul using a dream device to enter into his wife’s dream, where he acts out the scenario she had told him she had most wanted: one where he is dressed in an oversized David Byrne suit and saves her from a fire. And then the dream ends.
I loved the first two thirds of this movie, as Borgli takes this somewhat absurd scenario and presents it in a rather straight-forward fashion. There are dream sequences, but they are filmed in the same fashion as “reality” (leading to me at times questioning if something “really” happened, or it was simply in someone’s head). Borgli doesn’t push into Charlie Kaufman-esque surrealism, but lets the humor and pathos arise from the naturalism. As the film progresses and we start to see the pointed jabs at internet fame, cancel culture, and Gen-Z fragility, Borgli manages to keep these moments from getting too didactic, and allows the film’s views to be mostly supported by character personalities (Paul is so interesting because he is weak-willed, easily swayed by the situation he finds himself in). Which is why the sudden SNL-style skit showing stereotypical influencer-types is so off-putting. Borgli is directly mocking these people, and the acting (including a bit cameo by SUCCESSION’s Nicholas Braun) feels weirdly disconnected from the rest of the movie. I guess Borgli wanted to hammer home that with the dream device, Paul isn’t special anymore, but the sudden inclusion of this crazy sci-fi device in a world that was relatively normal (except for the strange phenomena of Paul’s dream appearances) changes the entire reality of this previously naturalistic environment. And what are we to make of Paul’s sudden return to passivity? Is Borgli merely trying to comment on “fame” culture and how it changes people? Or is there something more he wants to say about people with thwarted desires? The film feels like it’s building to some grand statement, but then flails around until settling on a depressing conclusion: Paul can only be happy and heroic in his own dreams.
Despite circling around several topics without ever landing on a profound statement, DREAM SCENARIO is a terrifically amusing and original movie. Borgli is incredibly talented, and it’s wonderful to see someone take on serious issues with such a deft comic touch. Of course, the real star here is Cage. Cage is always interesting, but one can see how much more involved he gets when the script is good. There’s the small way in which his mouth twitches as he tries to find the right words or how his eyes vacillate between fear and pride. Cage’s Paul feels completely lived-in, a complex bundle of sins (pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust) that he tries to tame. In one key scene, Paul complains to his family that all of these horrible things are happening to him, that he is the victim, but he didn’t do anything to deserve it. His daughter retorts, “you must have done something.” It’s a fascinating question: how much culpability do we have for how others treat us? Borgli plays with it, but ultimately can’t go much further than some interesting impressions. Paul is neither hero nor villain, but an uncomfortable mirror of our own passivity and doubts.
burning retina 