FilmSnobReviews

Title: Dream Scenario
MPA Rating: R
Director: Kristoffer Borgli
Starring: Nicholas Cage, Lily Bird, Julianne Nicholson
Runtime: 1 hr 42 mins

What It Is: In an odd turn of events a hapless professor gets involved in something he has no say in. Across the world millions of people see this mysterious man, Professor Paul Matthews (Cage) in their dreams. What starts as some sort of positive revelation turns quite sour when those dreams, as they sometimes do, begin to turn into nightmares. This leads to a series of unfortunate events involving Paul and sadly his family as well. All without him having done anything himself at all.

What We Think: This is a strange film and one that feels like Spike Jonze would’ve directed it. Nicholas Cage is absolutely fantastic here. He’s subtle and brilliant at first before absolutely losing it as the film goes on. Borgli, for his part is every bit up to the task of putting his own weird and wacky premise to the screen. It is honestly one of my favorite pieces in 2023. I loved the film. I loved how many bold swings the film takes. The best part is, it hits on almost all of them. This plays like a Gen Z Being John Malkovich minus the famous persons cerebellum as a device.

Our Grade: A, What a simply fantastic, weird and honestly refreshing piece. Come for the Nicholas Cage scene stealing stay for the great writing, smart script and biting satire of the world we live in. A world of influencers, real and reluctant, a world of companies monetizing whatever they can and whomever they can. Shout out goes to Michael Cera who is in his third movie we’ve seen this year and is great YET AGAIN as a smarmy, self-absorbed influencer representative company owner. The fact that that is a thing that could exist and become a viable occupation is…strange. A great film from A24 that will surely be underseen and will gain the status it deserves sometime down like on reevaluation. Happy to say I am, and will be on the right side of this one.