MIDNIGHT REVIEWS Dream Scenario
Midnight Reviews features reviews and thought pieces written and edited by a parent, at night, after bedtime.
This afternoon’s movie…
“Gruffalo. Gruffalo Child. Gruffalo.”
“Which one? Which one do you want to watch?”
“Gruffalo, Daddy. With mouse, and owl, and fox, and snake!”
Review: The film does indeed feature the famous mouse and owl and fox and snake troupe, along with the titular Gruffalo, whose ineptitude and naivety are too much for any suspension of disbelief. John Hurt’s voice is obviously the best match of performer to character as the owl. This short film suffers during repeated viewings, namely eleven times in three days.
The evening review…
DREAM SCENARIO
Directed by: Christopher Borgli
Featuring: Nicolas Cage, Julianne Nicholson, Lily Bird, Jessica Clement
Synopsis: When hapless, uninteresting family man Paul Matthews (Cage) starts appearing in everyone’s dreams, he must navigate his new upside-down world. His stardom also develops an edge when the dreams start becoming sinister.
Review: Dream Scenario is a story with a terrific, fascinating hook. Its marketing has been selling it as ‘What if Nicolas Cage turned up in your dreams?’ with a hint of the Cage-rage that convinced people around the world a film starring the Oscar winner was guaranteed to be ker-razy. But the film itself doesn’t lean too heavily into this. Its stock in trade is actually the quieter, sadder moments, with Cage revisiting certain character beats seen in the underrated The Weather Man.
Overall, it’s a satisfyingly constructed, focused look at the life of someone who hasn’t achieved everything he thought he would, with no particular reason why and no one else to blame. Paul works at a semi-prestigious university, giving lectures on animal adaptation (there’s another film acting as a stepping stone across this particular river). He says he has a book ready for publishers, based on his research. Well, it’s not quite finished yet. Actually, he hasn’t started it yet, but it’s a great idea about ants that’ll use his own copyright-pending phrase ‘antelligence’.
Some of the imagery works; some of it isn’t exactly subtle
The first noteworthy thing, and it’s a great, shining positive of the movie, is the acting across the board. Jessica Clement and Lily Bird as Paul’s daughters effortlessly give off that vibe of typical teen, before letting Paul in with subtle cues that actually dad is kinda cool, before things go off the rails and they start to wonder just what is going on. Janet Matthews (Nicholson) and Paul make a fantastic pairing, with every little moment revealing a marriage where each loves the other, but it’s a marriage bedded in enough that both are comfortable openly discussing the other’s failings during everyday conversation. And Cage himself is perfect as the lost nothing-man who doesn’t quite know what to do. With each mistake he makes, you can understand a little more where his passivity comes from.
The film could’ve been a sluggish, sorry tale of a sad sack, but it does well to ensure that Paul is at least partially responsible for the negative parts of his life as well as giving both him and us sequences which we’re both unsure about. Paul’s inaction is often his worst enemy. Even in limitless dreamland, Paul does nothing more than observe, casually and inertly wandering through. As soon as he realises he’s in other people’s dreams, Paul tries his best to flail at the moment and make something of himself. But what is there to make? To say the moral of the story is ‘be grateful for what you’ve got’ would be highly reductive.
Some of the imagery works; some of it isn’t exactly subtle.
The shot of Paul walking on a treadmill, before resignedly getting off. He isn’t getting anywhere.
The way he hardly ever takes off his unfashionable duffle coat unless prompted. He is always looking for the way out of any particular situation he’s in (he takes the coat off very quickly when going to a successful, influential acquaintance’s for dinner).
The repeated meandering through people’s dreams. It’s fitting that a man who seems to be sleepwalking through life is now doing it through people’s night time visions.
We’re reminded again and again by Paul’s enthusiastic explanation that zebras do better when they blend in with others, that their camouflage doesn’t work when they stand apart from the herd. These moments aren’t as witty or engaging as some of the darker comedy; the film does feature one of the saddest, funniest fart gags in cinema (top spot, of course, still retained by Blazing Saddles).
While the dreams are given an eerie enough feeling, there isn’t too much invention on show. People float, horrific figures stalk and people react ordinarily to strange things, which is strange. Some of these roads are well-trodden but still vaguely amusing. After suffering numerous setbacks that aren’t entirely his fault, Paul is offered marketing work that’s tailored for alt-right groups and makes a wholly insincere apology video. Despite these sorts of moments, the film never strays into being about cancel culture. It’s about fame as a whole, the precariousness of inviting it round whilst barely prepared and the way fame will, once it has its clawed toes in the door, will bust the door bolts off, grab you by the neck and have its way with you. Indeed, when the first negative aspects of fame start rearing their ugly head, Paul and his family are warned about making their home more secure. Paul constantly talks about getting his own foot in the door; what he doesn’t realise despite copious warnings is that the door that opened was his own, and now everyone’s inside.
Once the film starts trying to find an ending, it struggles
The tiny vignettes we’re offered as characters describe their nightmares are shot and edited well enough to give off that strange feeling when you become aware that, perhaps, something is not quite right. These sequences merely demonstrate, they never terrorise.
Some of the conversations are shot in a rather pedestrian fashion too. This combination doesn’t completely distance the viewer from the story, as demonstrated with the somewhat-emotional final scene with Paul and his wife. But it does create the sense that we’ve been invited to observe and not quite feel. Maybe in a packed house there would’ve been more tears, more fear, more laughter. But as the point where the movie should end approaches, it’s clear it won’t live up to its tantalising premise.
Once the film starts trying to find an ending, it struggles. Paul’s life is changed forever and as the new equilibrium is established we take a short detour to see a bunch of assholes boast about moving on from social media, bragging about the merch they could hawk in people’s dreams (a joke done, perhaps, a bit better in other stories). While it is a humorous scene, it felt like a sketch inserted into the end of a student film because the director wasn’t sure how to end things. After this we stumble along to an ending where Paul is still a loser, still lost, still not accepted for what he wants to be accepted for. Cue abrupt credits.
