Ah… Nicolas Cage. You never know what you’re going to get when you sit down to watch a Nick Cage movie. They can’t all be “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” or “Face/Off”, sometimes you get a “Jiu Jitsu” or “Ghost Rider.” Based on the trailer, I thought this looked like fun and I decided to give it a try. Before I go any further, there are major plot points ahead, so if you don’t want your dreams haunted with some spoilers, you may want to wake up now. In the meantime, check out some of my other recent reviews here.
Ok, with that out of the way, let’s get back into the world of sleep. “Dream Scenario” is the latest movie by A24 studios (which seem to be releasing a movie every week at this point). “Dream Scenario” was quite the interesting movie that started out amazing, then ended in a less than amazing way. Nicolas Cage plays Paul Matthews who is a less than interesting man. He lives a mostly boring, but honorable enough existence as a professor at a college with his wife and two teenage daughters. You quickly learn that he wants more out of life. He wants some noteworthy to happen to him so he can write the book he’s always imagined himself writing.
As we are learning that, we also find out that people are starting to dream about him. It starts out slowly at the beginning (with his daughter seemingly being the first), then more and more people start dreaming about him. The interesting thing about the dreams is that he’s just there… he’s always just walking by or just standing there watching, normally as bad things are happening to the person having the dream. At this point, he tries to take advantage of his fifteen minutes of fame and wants to use it as a step to get his book published. The fact that he doesn’t have the book ready to publish doesn’t really concern him. There are lots of funny and good interactions between himself and his family going on around this time. His wife Janet (played by Julianne Nicholson) and his daughters Hannah and Sophie (played by Jessica Clement and Lilly Bird respectively) are enjoying the perks that come along with his fame.
This is where things start to take a turn, in both the dreams and Paul’s real life. For reasons that no one knows, the dreams with Paul are still happening, but now they are starting to turn violent, scary, and deadly. When the nightmares start to get worse, so does Paul’s life as everyone is now afraid of him. His students stop showing up for class, his family is starting to doubt him, then he and Janet start to argue about how to handle the worsening situation. This is where Cage really shines. The way he acts in the dreams is slightly different for each person with some of them being slightly funny as well. He shows off some of his acting chops playing the different dream versions of himself.
The whole thing comes to a head when Paul makes bad decision after bad decision. Getting caught on camera yelling at college kids after they defaced his vehicle, posting a self-absorbed apology online after he has a dream about himself, and the worst one when he tries to sneak into his kids school to watch his daughter’s play and accidentally hurts one of the teachers in front of the whole auditorium. I honestly felt bad for the guy throughout the film. All of this happened to him without him doing a single thing to deserve it. The worst thing he did was try to take advantage of the situation he was already thrust into.
This is the point when I should have stopped watching, but I would never walk out of a movie, especially one this close to the end. But, I honestly don’t even know if I can properly explain what was going on here. It doesn’t appear that too much time has passed since he injured the teacher, but now he is separated from Janet and buying a house on his own. There is also a very odd segment that resembles an infomercial or advertisement talking about a new device that allows you to enter other people’s dreams and it allows companies to put ads in your dreams. The whole thing was odd, but then it gets worse as we see Paul has finally written a book, but it’s only in French and he’s doing a book tour and posing with a medieval Freddy Kruger. That whole segment seemed really unneeded and a poor way to end a good movie.
So, my final thoughts are this… The first three quarters of this film is good and slowly moves into great, then the final quarter is completely unnecessary and borders on terrible. I can’t think of a single movie in recent years that had such a huge drop-off like that. It’s a real shame too since this could have been one of the greatest Cage movies, but that ending puts it squarely in the middle and I will personally give this a 6 out of 10!
Have you seen this yet? What are your thoughts on either Dream Scenario or Nicolas Cage? Let me know in the comments.
I was wondering about this flick. I too thought it looked interesting or as you say, “fun.” I went ahead and spoiled the fun and read your review before watching the actual film. I am glad I did. Much like a dream, it sounds like the storyline is a bit messed up. When it comes out, I may give it a go, but until then, not sure I will make much of an effort. Thanks, Sully. I appreciate your insight.
Yeah, it’s worth the watch at some point, even if you already know most of the ending now.