In a year of bold projects for A24, Kristoffer Borgli’s Dream Scenario in many ways feels like a return to their original formula, with it being the first major film of an absurdist and darkly comic filmmaker featuring a handful of great well-known actors in a tight 1hr 40min runtime. Yes, Dream Scenario is a very palatable film that for all of its weirdness and bizarreness and is for the most part a funny and interesting concept that if anything is stretched just a little thin by the end once it takes its third act turn.
Borgli as a
director and as a writer for that matter has a great tact for image making, in
fact that this whole film is predicated on the concept. The premise allows for
multiple upon multiple flashes or short sequences depicting different dreams
ranging from the humorously absurd to the genuinely unsettling nightmare
quality, all spurned from the very intriguing concept that one day suddenly the
same man begins to appear in everybody’s dreams. That one man is a simple and
ordinary professor played by Nicholas Cage who is burdened by a charming
awkwardness and a preoccupation with being published. Borgli decides to use
this concept ultimately to discuss celebrity in the modern world and cancel
culture and to play my hand early it is this element of the film that worked
least for me, with its blatancy and obviousness. The film just grows less
interesting, less bizarre and more obvious as it goes on making the pace drag
and for this viewer his interest wain. The writing and direction and
performances all however remain at a high level, it’s just the conceit and
where its taken that gets rocky. Earlier in the film extended sequences play
out in an episodic fashion that lend to the films elliptical nature and
entertainment wise many of these ‘sketches’ per say are interesting and
entertaining, but it as this becomes a tragedy in the public sector for the
lead character of Paul that the film begins to loose its grasp – and also on a
visual level strays further and further from the montage style depiction of
dreams that reaped much of the films interest earlier in its run time. The
cancel culture element and then later the viral influencer commentary just is
nowhere near as strong as its earlier elements. Cage is the towering presence
in the film and with this casting there is almost a subtle choice to look at
how Cage is beloved and discussed in our culture as a zany and manic figure,
despite in many senses simply being a worker-man actor. But there is humour and
patheticness and oddity and pain in the character of Paul that Cage all pulls
off with immense flourish. Julianne Nicholson as his doting (to a point) wife
is strong here but perhaps not given as much to do as one would hope with an
actor of her strength. The same can be said for a lot of the great supporting
actors in the film, such as Tim Meadows, Dylan Baker and even Michael Cera, who
are all solid, but never especially given much to do. Everything is truly in
service of the Paul character and for as interesting as that is, one does feel
that the impact on others may have more weight to be discussed than this film
allows. Dylan Gelula however steals the show as Molly who in a single extended
sequence with Cage remains the films true highlight where the uncomfortable
humour, performances and complexities of the concept all come together in a way
that does not continue as the film goes on.
An entertaining and very funny 7/10 that is very well made and very well put together for the most part and then unfortunately takes a narrative shift and leans into societal commentary to less effect than the films more absurdist elements were reaping. Cage is terrific and manages to bring a pathos that makes the film overall feel successful, even if as it continues and strays Borgli’s writing does begin to suffer. Borgli however as a director pulls of a film that is visually dynamic and handles a very dry and at times even scary tone throughout and it can’t be underestimated that the film’s earlier successes are as entertaining and interesting as any of the best comedies of the year.
P.S. Can we please stop putting in footage from the literal final scenes from movies in our trailers? I go to the cinema lot and ended up watching this trailer so many times that I ended up feeling a distance from my previous excitement for the film. But the final moments of this film are so visually distinct that when they are discussed earlier in the film as a vision, I couldn’t believe that I had already seen these images in extended clips from the trailer.
- - Thomas Carruthers
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