Review: DREAM SCENARIO

Paul Matthews, a flubby, aging academic who has been promising the world and himself that he'll write that book, begins appearing in people's dreams. It could be a family member (like the first scene of the film) or a total stranger. He keeps getting accosted by people who tell him of the dreams but one detail is increasingly disturbing him: he just appears, playing no part, neither saving nor antagonising the dreamer. Even in other peoples' dreams, he's flavourless and ineffectual. At first, this turns into a benign fame. His students want selfies with him and an online publishing/advertising firm are very keen. But this is an extended fable and that fame must turn into infamy which it does, quickly and punitively.

The apparently effortless fame of the online world and the post-truth culture hauls Paul so swiftly that he has no time to adjust to it let alone use it to his advantage. Even when his relative innocence is tested the occasion is ruined with a kind of sexual whiplash. When this is followed by a moment of fury (unrelated) the shift happens. This is where it might have got sidetracked into settling for a cheap shot at cancel culture and stayed where it was (after all, those who seek to cancel him have nothing but hallucinated actions to base their condemnation). But the film's insistence on developing Paul's predicament and character mercifully take us well beyond this.

I thought of a few things while watching this film. The first is how much more eloquent the thoughts on the influence of dream states this tale is than Christopher Nolan's Inception. Where that movie really only ends up being a  multilevel labyrinth game, this feels more solid and consequential. I also kept thinking of the short satire Muskrat Fun for Everyone by Stan Dryer. This short fiction which appeared in Playboy begins as a man's curiosity over a shady personal ad leads him into eventual public execration despite his having done nothing he is accused of. The cancel culture notes here seem clever at first as the case against Paul is due entirely to acts others have dreamed, hallucinations. However, the jokes about getting him in line with the likes of Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson are much funnier. The cancellation is just a tool here, not the basis of the story. That rests with Paul and his relation to the crazy world around him and his own lifelong acquiescence. (I also need to mention, here, the direct sourcing of an old piece of internet folklore.)

There are many riches of contemporary satire on display here like the company offering a technology that allows them to enter dreams (with appropriate safeguards) to advertise and the notion of "dreamfluencers" as well as young entrepreneurs who blend genuine enthusiasm with conscience-free greed. But Dream Scenario sheds its satirical skin by the third act and heads for something more profound and IRL. After the tribulation, Paul has a way back to discover and what it will cost. The warmth to this journey (wherever it leads) lifts this story well above those whose motivations fall more to base ridicule (e.g The Menu, The Hunt, the irredeemable Triangle of Sadness). I won't spoil the ending of this film but can say that the telescoping of some of its elements is textbook but heavily satisfying. And that's before the very last moment.

A strong cast plays well but in this story the shoulders that bear it are those of Nicholas Cage. Cage began in his uncle Francis' movies and travelled to arthouse roles before establishing himself as a buff action hero ready to compromise any reputation he had already won with image-busting weirdness. He has come to publicly acknowledge this and have fun with it. However, he has still a few hard pebbles set aside like his unlovely portrayal of the alcoholic in Leaving Las Vegas, studied neurosis of a ficitonalised real author Charlie Kaufman in Adaptation, the smellable feral revenger in Pig and now the dowdy no-one here. He's already done his WTF performances and can star in movies that only require he show fury with a grin. Then there's this. He fits into the vision of a cinematic world of a young (i.e. not yet forty) auteur who continues to explore the strange thing that truth has become. Cage gives us a solid core so that Dream Scenario never gets twee or cute, that its laughs are loud and its appeals to the heart are strong.