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Nicolas Cage is back to his best in the quirky comedy drama, Dream Scenario, directed by Kristoffer Borgli, fromA24 films. The movie acts as a cautionary commentary on the effects of cancel culture in society and the power that dreams can have on a person’s subconscious mind, leading to these unreal scenarios manifesting in everyday life.
Dream Scenariowas one ofNicolas Cage’s highest ratedfilms of 2023, and one of the critical darlings at film festivals in 2023, receiving its world premiere in early September at the Toronto International Film Festival. It then received a limited release in cinemas on November 10, followed by an expanded release on November 22. Julianne Nicholson and Lily Bird and Dylan Baker co-star in the independent hit of the year.
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How does Dream Scenario end?
Paul’s rise to fame thanks to his appearance in dreams eventually takes a turn for the worse and sees a significant fall from grace for the lecturer. After initially being celebrated in dreams, Paul’s depiction shifts to much darker tendencies, which start to mirror his real-life actions, including infidelity. His take-down on society borders on something akin to cancel culture in the real world, with the movie’s themes coming out in the ending.
Paul is turned away from restaurants, and his lectures are also postponed. He’s even turned away from his own daughter’s play at her school, which causes him to react angrily, accidentally injuring a school teacher, which leads to people hating him even more.
A cringe-worthy public apology only adds to his downfall, and Paul is left divorced and alone, prompting more profound reflections on the consequences of his actions and the perception of him in society.
A technology is brought into existence that can put a person in other people’s dreams. It’s being manipulated by big corporations to advertise their products to people,set in their own dreams. Paul uses this dream technology to appear in his ex-wife’s dream, which involves him saving her life. When he wakes up, he is left with the feeling of wishing the dream was real, as he misses her and desperately wants her back in his life in a meaningful way.
What is Dream Scenario about?
The Ari Aster-producedmovie is about Paul Matthews, a hapless family man who finds his life changed beyond recognition when millions of strangers suddenly start seeing him in their dreams. He becomes a celebrity of sorts and tries to use the fame to get his long-planned book about ants off the ground.
Paul has a meeting with a marketing firm keen to cash in on his new-found fame, but it doesn’t go totally as planned when he realizes they don’t really care about him or his book. Paul hoped that his celebrity status meant that he could share his research and speak about topics that he was passionate about. Unfortunately, the firm only wants to use Paul’s stardom to achieve their own goals.
One of the team who meets with Paul ends up admitting that she has had dreams about him as well, and these dreams have been of a sexual nature, involving wild fantasies about him, and when she wants to replicate these dreams in real life, this is where Paul’s appearances in people’s dreams take a nightmarish turn, spinning his life out of control.
What is Dream Scenario’s Rotten Tomatoes score?
Dream Scenario was a hit with fans and critics alike, and this is evident from its extremely high scoring on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie ranks at 91 on the Tomatometer and is certified fresh from a total of 201 reviews. The audience score is also very high, at 68, from 100+ verified ratings. Lisa Johnson Mandell fromathomeinhollywood.composted her review on Rotten Tomatoes saying:
It’s a cunning take on media, both social and traditional, as well as pop culture. Director Kristoffer Borgli avoids tarting up his film with flashy CGI, schtick or an overly imposing score. He stands back and lets Cage do his brilliant best.
Rotten Tomatoes approved critic, Frank Swietek fromOne Guy’sOpinionhad this to say about the film’s ending:
An edgy satire about modern celebrity that, as happens so often nowadays, stumbles toward the close but offers so much that’s good along the way that you forgive its third-act lapses. The good certainly includes Cage’s witty performance.
The movie gets very strong reviews overall, but it did come in for criticism for the ending from quite a few of the reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes. However, Nicolas Cage’s performance is widely considered the strong point of the whole movie.
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