Dream Scenario (2023)

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Some have noticed the reason why Freddy Krueger is so scary is because he haunts you from where you can’t escape. Everyone has to sleep, and when that time comes every day, you’ll inevitably, and regrettably, face a monster without the physical capacity to do anything about it — unless you happen to wake up. Nicolas Cage in Dream Scenario eventually lands on a sort of Freddy Krueger role: he haunts the dreams of thousands, albeit not intentionally. However, unlike Freddy, the effect of his presence poses no real physical threat to anyone. So then why are people’s reactions the same as if it did?

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Whether his presence in their dreams is terrifying or innocuous, it seems to be a result of some sort of collective unconscious. Kristoffer Borgli’s latest feature film is less concerned with why this strange phenomenon occurs and more interested in how it affects those involved. Cage plays Paul Matthews, a tenured college professor with a doctorate in biology. All of a sudden, spurred by absolutely nothing, he begins popping up in other people’s dreams. First it’s an ex-girlfriend and a couple of his students, but eventually he shows up in the sleeping minds of some hundreds of thousands of people.

Claiming he doesn’t want the attention and publicity that this has ignited, Paul still dives headfirst into the fame that comes with his subconscious ubiquity. He attempts to leverage this notoriety into a long-aspired book deal and increased status among his wannabe friend group. His wife, Janet (Julianne Nicholson), who may or may not be a little controlling over him, becomes a bit jealous of Paul’s newfound fame until she too is able to use it to her own benefit.

In the dreams, Paul is always doing the same thing…at first. While some horrific event occurs in the mind of the sleeping person, our protagonist remains aloof or non-responsive to what’s going on around him. It turns out that this parallels Paul’s lack of tenacity in his real life. Fittingly, he becomes famous for doing absolutely nothing, both outside the dreams and inside of them.

Where other similarly high-concept movies will take their plots into logical directions, Dream Scenario lets its topic live its own life. Just as the plot was precipitated out of thin air, so too are some of the biggest developments in its story. Eventually, and randomly, Dream Paul begins murdering people in their dreams instead of remaining passive. As such, he becomes a social pariah and outcast even within his own community. Whenever someone sees him in public, they have negative responses to his mere presence, and it affects literally every aspect of his life.

Perhaps the film’s biggest flaw is its inability to provide diversity in its adversity. Certainly Paul would be met with firm support from a specific antipode of the public if this were to have really happened. However, Borgli, who writes and directs, maintains a level of social congruence in order to drive home his points, and perhaps to prevent his high-concept tale from getting messier than it needs to be. Everyone in the story seems to be on the same page — a facile take on groupthink society, especially in today’s age when seemingly everyone is divided. It’s here where the plot feels a bit manipulated in order to arrive at its desired results, and the illusion of its hypothesis becomes exposed.

Fortunately, even though people inside the story lack complex opinions, the voice of the film itself doesn’t. Compared to something like the recent Barbie movie, where the themes and messages are so blatantly obvious and direct that you know exactly which side the filmmakers sit on, Dream Scenario never approaches its ideas like a message to be driven home. Instead, it prefers to mask its intent. Providing food for thought rather than confirmation bias, the movie actually requests a level of interpretation and may require multiple viewings to take in all of its angles.

More of a critique of the weak-minded people influenced by media than it is of the media’s manipulation itself, Dream Scenario sprinkles commentary into its nuances instead of bashing us with broad strokes. If you’re trying to analyze the themes, you might get a completely different take away from the next viewer, which is what makes these types of films so special. It can also make them frustrating.

At its core, however, we’re met with the question of whether or not attention is actually good. We’re left to analyze the value of trying to blend in, like zebras in their herd. Our protagonist thrives when he keeps a relatively low profile, but flails when he becomes recognized — not necessarily because of the fame itself but because of his inability to handle it. He becomes a cautionary tale for our individual obsession with feeling important, regardless of how inauthentic that importance actually is. It’s amusing the terms we unofficially establish for our own fame, lest we become famous for the wrong reasons. If only it were that easy.

The media is certainly to blame as well, using the dream phenomenon as a means to invent a social disaster and arouse fear. And opportunists of the world will exploit that nugget of fear tenfold. They convince us that technology is the antidote for an issue that doesn’t really exist. There is no societal consequence to Paul being a passive bystander in dreams, but when he turns into a nightmarish figure, our emotions go haywire despite the fact that his actual threat to us remains the same in either instance.

Cage’s performance suggests his character’s own depth; the star doesn’t exist as a mere pawn to the film’s themes. If 2021’s Pig was wise enough to subvert our expectations of Cage as an actor, Dream Scenario brilliantly utilizes, if not wields his innate erraticism without completely exploiting it.

The film’s comedy usually comes from Cage’s reactions to his unprecedented scenario. Paul Matthews is an overt sociopath struggling to rectify his frustration with the stupidity of humanity against his need to be liked and respected — or at the very least go unnoticed. He’s often oblivious to social cues or the expectations of others, and plays with fire when merely trying to thrive in the most basic version of those circumstances. He can’t even hide his giddiness when his popularity burgeons during the onset of the phenomenon, even though he preaches to his student’s the irony of the zebra’s ability to blend in with its pack for survival.

It’s this same internal struggle that makes the audience frustrated when Paul can’t seem to fight back. He’s urged by his wife to confront an old colleague for plagiarism, as well as to make his public apology later on (in both scenarios she takes issue with his approach). Likewise, where an ordinary protagonist would fight back against the rampant ethical and legal issues involved with how he and his family are being treated, Paul just seems to cower.

He does use aggression sometimes, but for the wrong things. He goes ballistic when someone spray paints his car and petulantly throws food at a man who asks him to leave a restaurant. However, when he’s told that he can’t attend his daughter’s school play or when his wife is told to step down from her position at work, he approaches the conflicts with reason and misplaced level-headedness. Even though it’s set up like this to drive home the satire, it’s here when the audience is the most enraged.

Challenging the actual value of intellectual property and delineating the different layers of fame, Dream Scenario covers a plethora of themes adjacent to fame and attention as well. And then there’s our fixation with trying to control how others view us, which is a pertinent topic in today’s society where nearly 100% of people on social media only post highlight reels of their own lives.

As a result of the irrational fear in Dream Scenario, a new device gets invented which allows you to enter into other people’s dreams in order to speak to someone or sell them a product or make them listen to your new song, etc. However, there’s an “anti-nightmare” feature in the device which prevents any malicious “Pauls” from traumatizing you. And so, it’s sold not as good or bad, but merely harmless. But is harmlessness really a good thing or just a facade meant to deceive? Like everything, this new device will begin harmless before eventually, probably, getting exploited somehow. Borgli does an excellent job projecting his own ending without needing to explain what happens next. The catharsis is found in its implications. Perhaps an unequivocal nightmare isn’t so bad after all. At least you know where it stands.