A movie like Dream Scenario seems like a hybrid between a Charles Kaufman script that is directed by Ari Aster, even though he is credited as a producer. Norwegian filmmaker Kristoffer Borgli seems to be inspired by both especially with the casting of Nicholas Cage as the protagonist Paul Matthews, a biology professor at a fictional college that looks like it was filmed at a small community college in a Toronto suburb.
Paul’s daughter, Sophie (Lily Bird), tells him that she’s been having dreams of him standing around nonchalant while things fall from the sky in their backyard. Paul lives a humdrum mild-mannered life. He’s upset a colleague is trying to pass research he has done off as her own in an article. His students are bored in his class.
One night, he and his wife, Janet (Julianne Nicholson), go to a concert and he bumps into an old girlfriend, Claire (Marnie McPhail), who says she’s been having dreams about him and their similar to Sophie’s. She asks permission to write a blog post about it when they meet for coffee later. Paul is sort of upset Claire didn’t want to meet with him for something else. Janet, on the other hand, felt it wasn’t something like that.
Paul has male-pattern baldness and shuffles around mostly in an oversized parka. His beard is greying and he shuffles around in a oversized parka that makes him look more like a schlep. He’s very typical of a lot of middle-aged men you’d find in any college town were they’re tenured professors mainly teaching Intro classes because the dean, Brett (Tm Meadows), can’t convince the Board of Regents to let him teach anything else because he doesn’t bring any money into the school.
Claire writes her story and it goes viral as many other people claim to have similar dreams of Paul. One of those is a friend of Paul’s colleague and acquaintance, Richard (Dylan Baker), who is often hosting major dinner parties Paul wants invites to. The woman claims to have never seen Paul, which surprises Richard.
But it’s here where Borgli could’ve further examined the premise. It would only be natural for Sophie, Claire and even Paul’s students to have dreams about him. Their subconscious incorporates Paul into their dreams. Remember that Twilight Zone episode where Dennis Weaver dreams he’s a condemned man on death row who keeps bumping into people he’s interacted with but they’re different people and he knows it?
After the story goes viral and Paul becomes famous, more people dream of him. But are they dreaming of him now because they’ve seen the news stories? Could it be possible that Richard’s friend might have seen a picture of Paul in the past and just forgot it? This would’ve been a far more cerebral idea for a movie on how our subconscious sometimes plays with our minds.
The X-Files in its last season did a version of this with The Mandela Effect. It was played for laughs but it also made you think that we only remember what we want and people seem to jump on the bandwagon when things become popular. I can tell you right now that when Hootie and the Blowfish’s Cracked Rear View album dropped 30 years ago, everyone had to have it and see them in concert. A year or so later, people were acting like they never did like the band.
Also Borgli could’ve looked at the price of fame as Paul finds himself the fruit of the week but soon discovers fame is fleeting as people grow tired of him. But no, the movie goes to crap in the second half. Paul meets in New York City with Trent (Michael Cera), the head of a viral marketing firm who wants to exploit Paul’s popularity for commercials with Sprite. Yet, Paul’s keeps talking about want to write a book. This scene is played for laughs but becomes tedious.
Paul later meets with Trent’s assistant, Molly (Dylan Gelula), for a drink who seems attracted to him and says she has a dream of Paul sneaking into her apartment to force himself sexually on her. Again, this could’ve looked at how celebrity and fame turns some of the most basic and bland people into sexual attractions. Take how James Gandolfini spent almost 20 years flying under the radar as a character actor in theater, movies and TV shows before he was cast on The Sopranos and suddenly women (and men) were saying they were more attracted to him in The Mexican than Brad Pitt. Sir Patrick Stewart was called one the sexiest man on TV by TV Guide. But that’s because he was on TV.
Again, Borgli could look at the concept of celebrity and people who are famous for being famous rather than make it topical toward the Internet. It’s obvious Paul is sexually frustrated and his relationship and marriage with Janet has plateaued. He thinks Claire still has feelings for him but upset she doesn’t. He even plays like he’s not attracted to Molly, who is much younger than he, but still goes to her apartment to work out her dream. Yet for all this, Borgli has to foolishly ruin it by having Paul fart – twice. Thus, he ruins the moment because he has flatulence when he gets excited.
Bathroom humor can work in a wannabe high-brow movie like this made by A24. Frank Oz did it in Death at a Funeral where a man finds his hand covered in another’s feces. But it was do so well with the farcical style of plot. Here, you’re just seeing how it all leads up to Paul ruining it because he’s a bald, unattractive overweight man so he has to fart.
From here on the movie relies on the Idiot Plot Device as late film critic Roger Ebert called it because you have to be an idiot to believe it. People start having dreams where Paul is belligerent and violent. His students don’t want him at the college because they’re liberal Gen Zers who are snowflakes who vandalize his car then record him getting angry to show how awful he is in real life. Just like Don’t Look Up, Borgli thinks the more outrageous he makes the movie, the more satirical it will be. But it has to be handled well. Because everyone is so one-dimensional, it’s hard to sit through the second half, especially since Paul suddenly becomes overly erratic for no reason other than the plot calls for it. Sadly, we don’t even get a good Nic Cage freakout.
The problem with the second half of the movie is Borgli spends too long wagging his finger at younger people that the movie falls off the rails fast but it crashes and burns slowly. In Adaptation., where Cage played both Charlie Kaufman and his fake twin brother, Donald, the movie, which was a loose adaptation of The Orchid Thief, turned into a deus ex machina where Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper’s characters resort to sex and drugs. Then they try to kill Charles afraid he will expose them. Only in that ending, the real Kaufman and director Spike Jonze were making a subtle statement on how Hollywood movies always have to end with a needless confrontation even when the plot leading up to it didn’t seem headed that way. Alfred Hitchcock did the same thing more obvious in North by Northwest where he had James Mason’s character make a meta reference how Martin Landau’s character being shot at the last second as he’s trying to push Cary Grant’s character off of Mount Rushmore is typical.
Borgli doesn’t do that. Instead he just has the movie fall apart where Paul is accused of hurting someone at a crowded place when it’s an accident. People spit in his food at a restaurant when he refuses to leave and his book publication is a fiasco where he is knocked on the head with a light when the book signing is moved to a dank basement. This isn’t funny. It’s not satire or dark comedy. It’s poor writing and plotting. It’s the same as in the movie Alien Nation where they blow a great concept on a police procedural plot about alien humanoids and drug manufacturing.
Cage is the only thing that makes this movie worth watching, partially because I feel he’s channeling some of his feelings over the years as people have questioned his acting and choices. But there’s only so much you can do of that. And he’s already done it in the better in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. Unfortunately, Nicholson is wasted as her Janet becomes a whiny caricature. Borgli could’ve explored how being a spouse of a celebrity can have its perks and disadvantages but instead just throws in her being removed from a work project when people begin to have nightmares about Paul. And even here the filmmaker doesn’t fully examine people jumping on the Negativity Train whenever celebrities get bad press.
Instead, he’s more concerned with comedy more suitable for an Adam Sandler comedy where people fart and get hit in the head with things for laughs. As I said in a previous post about Poor Things, the praise for this movie is mainly because Borgli is not an American and he’s making fun of Americans. Yet at 100 minutes with credits, this premise is more suited for a Twilight Zone, Black Mirror or even an old South Park episode before Trey Parker and Matt Stone starting smelling their own farts themselves.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 