What are you supposed to think when you suddenly appear in all sorts of subconscious areas?
Photo: Metropolitan Film Export
How would you feel if complete strangers suddenly dreamed of you? Would you like the sudden fame? That’s exactly what happens to cult star Nicholas Cage in Kristoffer Borgeli’s unusual genre mix “Dream Scenario” – obviously co-produced by Ari Aster (“Midsommar”), who initially wanted to film Borgeli’s script himself.
However, the now 60-year-old Cage, who has just made six films in 2023, is hardly recognizable in the mix of black comedy, drama and horror films: as the evolutionary biologist Paul Matthews, he wears glasses, is half bald and has a minimal prosthetic nose makes “remarkable nobody” seem a little scary. Paul is quite happily married, has two teenage daughters who don’t think he’s particularly cool and has to fight for the attention of his students every day.
From the very beginning, Borgeli’s wise decision to shoot on grainy 16mm film gives the feeling of being up close and personal with a documentary about an average man.
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Paul has actually been wanting to publish a book about ant intelligence for years, but in fact hasn’t put a page to paper yet. When his younger daughter suddenly dreams of him repeatedly, he thinks nothing of it – except that his passivity in her dreams annoys him. But when he accidentally meets his ex-girlfriend, who also dreams of him and he flatteredly allows her to write about it in her blog, Paul suddenly goes viral: it turns out that he appears to numerous people in their dreams at night.
For example, a student dreams that he is being chased and attacked by a giant covered in blood, while Paul, who is strolling by, is only interested in mushrooms growing nearby. A student finds herself in a dream in an apocalyptic scenario, through which Paul walks through unmoved. Nevertheless, Paul rises in people’s social standing.
The ingenious basic premise of the English-language debut by the Norwegian Borgeli, who already took a sarcastic look at the world of social media with his bitter comedy “Sick of Myself” in 2022, goes back to a phenomenon called “This Man” from 2006. Apparently several thousand people had dreamed of the same man. Ultimately, the whole thing turned out to be a guerrilla marketing campaign by an advertising agency.
In any case, Paul is enjoying the unexpected fame for now and wants to use it to his advantage to finally publish his unwritten book. How convenient that an influencer agency soon stepped in to capitalize on Paul’s unusual popularity. Michael Cera plays the boss of this agency with thieving joy, and Kate Berlant (Mary) and Dylan Gelula (Molly) also clearly enjoy satirizing hip branding managers.
The twist at the end, which won’t be revealed here, in which Succession star Nicholas Braun plays another influencer, wasn’t necessarily needed – this great scene already makes it clear what insane culture wars are raging on the internet these days.
With Molly, Paul’s tide turns. She also dreams of him, but he is anything but passive there because he repeatedly rapes her in her dreams. This seems to excite her – which ultimately leads to a rather bizarre sex scene.
But Molly isn’t the only one who has violent dreams about him – suddenly Paul is the protagonist in numerous nightmares around the globe. Excitingly, it becomes increasingly difficult for the viewer to distinguish whether some scenes are reality or a nightmare filmed according to all the rules of the horror genre.
In these dreams, Cage, the master of “over-the-top acting,” can finally turn up the heat again. Otherwise, he acts surprisingly reserved and proves once again what a versatile actor he is, who still leaves his mark on all the films in which he appears. Just think, for example, of his magnificent portrayal of a suicidal alcoholic in “Leaving Las Vegas,” for which he received an Oscar. Or the metacomedy “Massive Talent,” in which he plays himself. Or his crazy Dracula in “Renfield” and his lonely truffle hunter in the great gourmet drama “Pig”.
Little by little, no one wants to have anything to do with Paul anymore, even though he hasn’t done anything to anyone, as he never tires of emphasizing. Even his family turns away from him.
Towards the end, Paul succumbs to his typical fate for our media age, in which one can suddenly become a strange celebrity, but is just as quickly demoted to a non-person or forgotten. He resignedly realizes that his book wasn’t even published under the title he had suggested, “Dream Scenario,” but instead was called, for advertising purposes, “I am your nightmare.”
»Dream Scenario«: USA 2024. Director and screenplay: Kristoffer Borgli. Starring: Nicolas Cage, Michael Cera, Julianne Nicholson. 102 minutes, start: March 21st.
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