Writer-director Kristoffer Borgli (Sick of Myself) helms this black comedy about Paul Matthews (Nicolas Cage), an academic desperate for recognition despite being wholly without achievement. He lectures to college students who don’t care and pretends to be head of household to wife Janet (Julianne Nicholson) and unimpressed daughters Sophie (Lily Bird) and Hannah (Jessica Clement). Paul’s life is wholly unremarkable until, for reasons unknown, he suddenly begins to appear in strangers’ dreams, eventually becoming a viral sensation. Suddenly everyone knows him, and, worse, he begins to believe he’s special. (102 min.)
Glen: Dream Scenario’s message is the classic “be careful what you wish for” story. Paul is a deeply insecure person who’s always looking for validation and embracing victimhood at every turn. He’s sure he’s being disrespected and dismissed. He may be right. He’s an insufferable bore, desperately needy for affirmation and attention. When it finally comes, he handles fame like an obnoxious fool. Borgli has created a film that comments on the fickle whims of pop stardom, cancel culture, and influencer fame, and he really makes our hunger for celebrity look ugly. I have to hand it to Cage. He makes more than his share of terrible movies (The Retirement Plan, Sympathy for the Devil, and The Old Way all made this year), but he also makes art (Pig) and goes all in when parodying his reputation (The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent). This is among his best films.
Anna: He’s not a man afraid to leap into a project with an unknown outcome, and Cage once again proves his chops as an actor in Dream Scenario. Paul goes beyond the realm of insufferable dad into a pretty unlikeable dude who is wholly convinced that the world is working against him. He’s an evolutionary biology professor, one who’s convinced his ideas and work have been stolen by an ex. He can’t get an invite to the cool dinner parties his acquaintance throws, and none of the kids in his class seem interested in participating. In short, he feels sorry for himself. Even after the brief rise from mediocrity that this new dream presence brings, he can’t convince anyone it’s more than a bit of a hat trick. Cage plays the blustering character perfectly—a man with the same level of pizzazz as skim milk. You’d feel bad for him if he was anything more than desperate, yet Cage manages to also make the character feel uncompromisingly human. It’s a weird movie, but a good one.
Glen: It’s profoundly weird! The third act shifts into what might be described as sci-fi lite after an inventor creates a device based on Paul’s phenomenon that allows wearers to enter others’ dreams. And what exactly is such an amazing device used for, you might ask? So “influencers” can enter people’s dreams to sell them products. It’s a skillfully constructed satire that skewers the baking-sheet-shallow superficiality of modern technological life. Paul’s an average person who wants to be seen as exceptional—a man with a good job and a great family who in the face of undeserved fame bungled his happiness.
Anna: What Paul sees as a great opportunity, a foot in the door, turns out to sort of unravel the fabric of his life. It’s fun to be the guy everyone recognizes … sometimes. But other times it can cause mayhem, and sometimes it can shatter everything. We’ve been given a sort of nothing character, a run-of-the-mill dude who thinks the world hasn’t appreciated his presence. But once that presence is known, the humdrum life of normalcy starts to look pretty good.
New Times Senior Staff Writer Glen Starkey and freelancer Anna Starkey write Sun Screen. Comment at gstarkey@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Dec 7-17, 2023.