Dream Scenario Review
9/10
The idea of what defines a movie star today has been morphed beyond recognition. Not many actors can entice a wide audience with their names alone. Quentin Tarantino caught some flack when he said the following about Marvel actors: “You have all these actors who have become famous playing these characters, but they’re not movie stars, right? Captain America is the star. Or Thor is the star.” He’s absolutely right here. That’s not to dismiss the acting talents of the MCU stars, but a mass audience won’t pay to see the next Chris Evans movie when he isn’t wearing the costume. Tom Cruise is one of the last stars left who can sell a movie to a huge crowd with his name alone. Where does this leave someone like Nicolas Cage?
He is from an era where mainstream audiences would pay to see his films based purely on it being the next Nick Cage film. His mass appeal floundered for a period around the early 2010s, but even that has been overstated by social media. People were acting like he vanished from the face of the earth. He never stopped working; it’s just that the roles were not as high-profile and prestigious as they once were. Most actors go through these lulls in popularity, even the biggest names who used to garner the biggest budgets. Have you looked at John Cusack’s recent filmography?
The best way to describe Cage’s appeal is summed up by Ethan Hawke in a Reddit AMA: “He's the only actor since Marlon Brando that's actually done anything new with the art of acting; he's successfully taken us away from an obsession with naturalism into a kind of presentation style of acting that I imagine was popular with the old troubadours. If I could erase his bottom half bad movies, and only keep his top half movies, he would blow everyone else out of the water.”
When I first read this, I thought it was a tad hyperbolic, but the more I thought about it, the more on point it was. Ever since the rise of Method acting, most Hollywood stars have gravitated towards more grounded and realistic performances. Cage is the exact opposite; he swings for the fences with every role. He doesn’t always score a home run, but when he does the performance is unlike anyone else’s. That’s not to say he can’t do a down-to-earth role, his performance in Pig for example is one of his best, and that one is the definition of understated.
Dream Scenario’s premise is brilliant in Its simplicity. An unremarkable man, Paul Matthews (Nicolas Cage), becomes famous when people start seeing him in their dreams. Paul is average in every conceivable way. This would be of minimal concern, except he is growing weary of his lack of action. Even in other people’s dreams when it should be the more fantastical version of himself. Paul is passive, his dream image just stands there, watching the surreal proceedings with indifference. Paul is a biology professor and yearns to get his work published.
His wife Janet (Julianne Nicholson) is baffled by her husband’s newfound fame, but she still tries to be supportive. Their relationship is part of what makes the film work so well. Her character could have been a jealous 1-dimensional caricature with a disconnect from her husband. Instead, the film presents them as a loving couple who care deeply for each other. Even when Paul’s life eventually spirals downward, Janet does everything she can to help them cope with their new reality. When their relationship begins to fracture as the dreams turn into nightmares, I felt that genuine sense of loss and fear they were living.
The film is smart to never explain why Paul keeps appearing in people’s dreams. That idea is a strong hook on its own; overexplaining it would ruin the allure. What begins as a straightforward “what if” tale becomes a smart deconstruction of the pitfalls of being a celebrity. Our obsession with celebrities and their lives has a toxic hold on the population. They think they know these famous faces based purely on their visual exposure to them in the media, but they really have no idea who they are.
This dream personification of Paul eventually becomes a nightmare. He stops being a passive observer and instead turns violent and horrific. He has spent so many years trying to be a standout and memorable individual, but this is too far in the other direction for him. Now, people are traumatized by the mere sight of Paul. He did nothing in real life to warrant this response. The film comments on the idea of “cancel culture” by showing Paul’s rise to celebrity status and his fall from grace in the public eye. Cancel culture has become one of the most overused terms today. It is used so much it barely means anything anymore. Most of the time you see two popular perspectives: it either doesn’t exist in any form or it is a ravenous demon devouring our world. The truth, as often happens, is somewhere in the middle.
Dream Scenario is a wonderful film that delves into the absurd circumstances arising from the least interesting person imaginable becoming an overnight sensation. Cage is brilliant in the role and conveys every ounce of frustration and self-loathing required. Paul’s lack of unique features is what makes him a compelling character. He reacts to what is going on in a realistic way. His desperation to be adored is earnest and tragic. One of the best moments in the film is when he is pressured into filming an apology video because of the actions his dream self takes. It is a bizarre and inexplicable concept, to say you are sorry for something that isn’t even your fault. It’s not far off from how many PR-driven apologies we see from celebrities. The video itself is cringe-inducing in the most magical way. Despite how it is viewed as pathetic, it is obvious that Paul means every word and is bleeding his heart out, which only makes him look desperate for attention.
Kristoffer Borgli has created a fantastic and strange film that never tips too far into the absurd. It does slightly overexplain itself towards the end when the dream invasion idea is grounded with a technological explanation. We never truly know why Paul can enter people’s dreams, but the film showcases how this could be exploited and monetized by a corporate entity. I liked this idea, but I felt it leaned a bit too far into attempting to rationalize the situation. I did not see his previous film Sick of Myself, but if it’s anything as interesting as Dream Scenario, then he is a serious filmmaking force to be reckoned with.
