Synopsis: Hapless family man Paul Matthews (Nicolas Cage) finds his life turned upside down when millions of strangers suddenly start seeing him in their dreams. But when his nighttime appearances take a nightmarish turn, Paul is forced to navigate his newfound stardom, in this wickedly entertaining comedy from writer-director Kristoffer Borgli (Sick of Myself) and producer Ari Aster.
What We Thought:
Dream Scenario has a fantastic concept, but struggles to stick the landing. Its first two acts are quirky and odd, but are highly entertaining and different like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. With the third act they clearly didn’t know how to end it so they went with multiple endings that didn’t feel cohesive.
At this point in his career you’re really not sure what you’re going to get from Nicolas Cage. Will he put in an award worthy performance like Pig, a highly entertaining performance like The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent or a performance for a paycheck like in any of the countless straight-to-video/streaming movies he’s made over the past 15 years? He’s genuinely good here. It may not be award caliber like Pig, but it’s a solid return to form. He plays an everyday, absolutely forgettable type that’s a professor at a college who has a wife and two daughters. There is nothing remarkable about him until he starts appearing in people’s dreams.
What the movie does best is it never offers explanation for how or why Cage’s Paul character is showing up in dreams. There’s no rules or guidelines for why he’s there so the film never breaks any of its rules. He’s not even doing anything in most dreams, he’s just there. He becomes an overnight sensation as more people start talking about their shared experience. Paul decides to use this new found stardom to help find a publisher for the book he wants to write. Of course in today’s world, sponsorship and selling out for marketing purposes instantly gets brought up because that’s what you do thanks to social media. As Paul tries to tackle his new life, it gets flipped upside down once again as he becomes the bad guy and part of cancel culture. All this while not actually doing anything.
Unfortunately this is where the film loses steam. It’s not sure where it wants to go at this point. It brings up the alt-right and people like Tucker Carlson, but at the same time highlights the craziness of cancel culture and safe spaces for today’s ridiculous students. This man’s life goes from the highs of overnight stardom to crushed by mob mentality in a heartbeat. And ultimately the movie never really lets you know what to take away from that because the ending wanders in too many directions. It has a funny bit about technology which should be the ending because it would really showcase how life is today and what we do to people, but it doesn’t end there. It keeps going about Paul and his family without giving an actual conclusion to what happened.
It’s a shame it goes this way because with the right ending Dream Scenario had potential to be a sleeper pick for my top 10 of the year. Cage makes you laugh at his normalcy and makes you wonder how you’d react to situations like this. Every week social media makes a hero or zero out of someone so there is something there to be said about that, but unfortunately this film doesn’t know where it wants to go. It gets political. It talks about technology. It talks about how humans treat other humans and how instantly someone’s life can be great or destroyed. Ultimately the ending derails its potential and left me more confused than entertained.
The Nerds Templar 