'Dream Scenario' Is Far From A Snooze
Nicholas Cage enters his most meta role yet. First, he played an exaggerated version of himself in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent and spoofed his role from 1998's Vampire's Kiss by playing Dracula in Renfeild. Now Nick is entering our dreams in Dream Scenario. Kristoffer Borgli writes and directs something of a modern version of Being John Malkovich, where the appearance of one man becomes a sensation. Why does this random bald, average-shaped man appear in everyone's subconscious? Instead of it being a supermodel or a rockstar, everyone gets a nobody everyday man in their dreams. It's as if the everyman is part of ourselves. And that part is what's missing in our subconscious. We only see images of a certain kind of beauty that the media displays through a narrow lens of people who are tall, thin, ripped, and tanned. Those are the people who are usually on TV, and they're also the people who appear in our dreams.
How often have we dreamed of Bradd Pitt or Angelina Jolie? Why do we dream about people we don't even know yet feel like we do? Thanks to the media, building famous figures up causes them to feel like we know them personally. We know when Ben Affleck is breaking up with his wife and when he's hooking back up with Jennifer Lopez. Why is it important? It's not. But Entertainment Media needs to exist so they stay relevant. With body positivity and social media redefining the famous landscape, Paul Matthews (Nicholas Cage) becomes a viral star without needing to look like Ryan Gosling to win hearts.
When people first dream of Paul, he's not doing anything in the dream. For instance, when his daughter Hannah (Jessica Clement) dreams of her dad, he's just raking the leaves as she floats away in the air, along with each falling leaf going up with her. Gaining altitude, Hannah asks her dad for help, but he does nothing to assist her. In one of his student's dreams, Paul is calmly walking around a library that is in the midst of a massive earthquake. In everyone's scenarios, Paul doesn't do anything. He's passive. Is it representative of Paul needing to do something different with his life? Is doing the same thing equivalent to doing nothing? Paul wants to publish a book about microbiology but has difficulty finding an interested publisher. He goes as far as to almost corner and begs his peers to make his book a reality.
When going viral, a company called "Thoughts" wants to exploit Paul's fame. They have no interest in his book as evolutionary biology isn't marketable. Everyone dreams of Paul except for his wife Janet (Julianne Nicholson), making Paul feel insecure about himself. "How can everyone dream of me except my own wife?" Paul must feel. It's similar to the jealousy we may feel when our partner dreams of someone else instead of us.
Although exploited by "Thoughts," Paul wastes no time jumping on the fame train, making a social media video of himself talking about how being in everyone's dream makes him feel. The answer to that feeling is damn good. Fame does come at a price, as everyone's dreams about Paul become nightmares. When Paul is no longer passively in someone's consciousness and is active in them, he becomes a symbol of horror. From rape to murder, Paul Matthews goes from being beloved to Freddy Kruger. Although Paul has never done anything to harm anyone in real life, it doesn't stop the public from vilifying him. Nobody wants the man from their nightmares to talk to them, and there's nothing Paul can do to stop himself from becoming the object of everyone's fear.
Paul Matthews becomes the embodiment of how the world handles fame. It's the adage of setting people on a pedestal only to knock them down. What happens to Paul isn't dissimilar to what happened to Tiger Woods. Tiger may have been unfaithful to his wife, but was it reason enough to destroy his reputation? Paul's not actively choosing to be in people's nightmares, yet he shows up in them anyway. "Thoughts" goes from wanting Paul on Sprite ads to having him be a counterculture warrior, asking him if he'd like to appear on Tucker Carlson.
If I could describe Dream Scenario in one word, it would be hilarious. In a checkbox way, Dream Scenario is an A24 film. It features an obscure dive into the mind and has dark humor in what is an existentialist picture. Whether it be sausage fingers in Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, or farting during an uncomfortable intimate moment, A24 knows how to make obscure funny, moving pictures. Although not exactly moving, Dream Scenario is fascinating. It takes a high concept and makes it relatable by mememing meme culture. By casting Nicholas Cage, Writer/Director Kristoffer Borgli is saying something about how we place Cage's appearance in everything from pillows to superimposing his head on Disney Princesses.
By making one of the most recognizable actors an everyday man, Kristoffer Borgli makes his dreamy concept soar. Cage attaches an almost Fargo-like speech pattern to his performance to play the role of a regular nobody. There's just something funny seeing Nicholas Cage being bald and having a beer gut while sporting ugly gray sweaters. The film emphasizes a physically unfit Cage to make him appear average. What isn't average is the quality of this film. Dream Scenario is a laugh riot, profound picture about fame and the subconscious that will have you in stitches in one of its many scenarios.
