DREAM SCENARIO (Middleburg FF 2023) – Review by Leslie Combemale
The idea for Dream Scenario sounds fascinating and clever. Nicolas Cage stars as a hapless, uninteresting professor who starts showing up in dreams for people all over the world, becoming a celebrity overnight. Nic Cage fans will be entertained, with the actor showing the restraint and nuance needed to properly anchor this bizarre concept. The movie does highlight the best and worst aspects of being pointed to by the fickle finger of fame, but a limp second half loses the momentum for what could have been a far more compelling story.
Cage plays professor Paul Matthews, a never-published tenured professor (that alone will yank any professors out of the story, since it’s nearly impossible to receive tenure without being published in your field), who is tolerated by his bored students. His wife Janet (Julianne Nicholson) and kids live an unremarkable life. Actively disliked by other professors, and largely ignored by college dean Brett (Tim Meadows), Paul starts showing up in the dreams of his students and random folks he encounters through his day. He quickly becomes news when people recognize him as the man they see ineffectually appearing in a wide variety of dream scenarios. At first, Paul enjoys the attention, leading to several bad choices. Those choices may or may not be reflected in a shift of events that brings the worst kind of bad press and public animosity.
As the story unfolds, it becomes clear why Ari Aster would have been interested in producing the film, which certainly takes a dark turn. Nicolas Cage definitely embodies Paul’s understated, anxiety-ridden and insecure character, and leans into his blandness. You’ll not be seeing the high-profile flamboyance of, for example, his Dracula in the recent Renfield. In that way, it’s a great vehicle for the actor, but the script that lets him, and by extension, the audience down. Writer/director Kristoffer Borgli is lambasting both the unqualified fame social media can bring to the everyman, and the subsequent cancelation of said fame at the public’s whim.
It’s an interesting idea, but the story loses steam, and it neither goes fully dark nor finds a positive resolution by the closing credits. It is Dream Scenario’s star, showing an immense versatility and nuance in his performance, that makes the film worth watching.
2 1/2 out of 5 stars.
