“Dream Scenario” (2023) is Norwegian writer and director Kristoffer Borgli’s debut film made outside of his native country. Ari Aster was going to direct then decided to become a producer after seeing Borgli’s work. Tenured professor, husband, and father, Paul Matthews (Nicholas Cage), has a decent life, but when he starts appearing in people’s dreams, he enjoys the attention. When his oneiric doppelganger stops being a passive observer and becomes a torturer, Paul risks losing everything that he had before his dreams started to come true.
Paul is the kind of man who seems successful, but maybe he is hanging on to those achievements by a thread. His closest friend, Brett (Tim Meadows), is the Dean of Osler University where he has tenure. His wife, Janet (Julianne Nicholson), who still has esteem for him and gets jealous when other women talk to him, owns their beautiful home. As “Dream Scenario” unfolds, every woman in his life, whether a coworker or former girlfriend, is more accomplished and living the life that he dreams—they are writers, creators. He boasts to his wife, but his reality is filled with begging. Even one of his daughters does not believe that she can rely on him to save her. He is the kind of man that his college friends would not invite to dinner. It is difficult not to feel bad for him while simultaneously relating to those around him.
“Dream Scenario” is committed to the idea of Paul as a man who cannot rise to the occasion even when given an opportunity. It is an interesting film to watch soon after “American Fiction” (2023) about a professor who generates and rides a wave to the next level of success even if it is against his scruples. Multiple undeserved opportunities fall into Paul’s lap, and he wants to grasp them, but he still cannot leverage it into a stable reality. Cage only delivers one line (“You already broke the rule, Hannah”) in his characteristic Cage way otherwise he vanishes into his role as an everyman, no man. It may be his saddest performance ever as Paul chokes at every opportunity. When the pendulum begins to swing back, it is equally undeserved, but a kind of balancing of the scales. Paul is a pathetic figure, who wants more than he can achieve on his own steam. Paul’s hubris ultimately leads to the punishment in the second half of “Dream Scenario.”
“Dream Scenario” never explains the phenomenon, which is characteristic of premise fiction where a single sensational, sci-fi factor disrupts an otherwise realistic world, which worked when it just focused on how it affected Paul and his immediate surroundings. If the movie has a flaw, it is creating such an inherently uninteresting protagonist that the movie begins to shift its focus from Paul. The film turns into a nightmare satire of advertising depicting a world where influencers promote products in your dreams. While the satire is credible and terrifyingly hilarious, it has the unfortunate effect of making the comprehensive total of the film feel inconsistent. When the narrative returns to Paul, it loses momentum, and it becomes a bittersweet romance with Paul yearning to go back to his happiest time in obscurity.
“Dream Scenario” does imply an explanation for the mass dreams: Paul’s anger over his perception that a former colleague stole his idea. When he sees the allegedly purloined idea in print, his audible rage seems to have a ripple effect in the dream world. It is the subliminal “Falling Down” (1993). Paul’s dream state is his real, unsuppressed, uninhibited self: he is a void watching others live or a man lashing out for not getting what he wanted from his fantasy. Still Paul did not actively do anything. There is no intent. In the opening of the film, Paul presses his daughter Sophie for details about the dream, and Janet admonishes, “Don’t make her feel guilty of her dreams.” Yet he gets punished.
“Dream Scenario” falters in trying to shine a spotlight on cancel culture even although there is great joke theorizing who would accept someone like Paul if he became a pariah. Everyone has had a dream where intellectually you understand that it is a dream, and yet the events in the dream influence how people feel about the person in real life. It is natural and unfair, but some who lash out at Paul had no dream, and Paul’s reaction repulses them, including his family. It felt as if there was a minute amount of missing connective tissue between Paul being acceptable before, but not now. It is the act of being observed that changes them. They can see him through others’ eyes, and they also feel the loss of his flicker of fame.
“Dream Scenario” missed an opportunity to explore the supporting characters who do not dream or at least do not dream about Paul. When the film tires of Paul and diverts into social commentary, another intimate alternative was elaborating more about Janet. Nicholson is a great character actor who wrings every morsel about Janet. Janet’s work was unclear, but fascinating as a coworker bystander finds herself nearby riveted and chronicling Janet’s every move up and down her career ladder. Janet is a calm woman with turbulent emotional waters bubbling beneath her calm façade, but she does not dream. Her girlish side emerges in a private moment with Paul when she confides her fantasy about him, but her adult reptile brain jumps at the chance to exploit and benefit from Paul’s fifteen minutes. She is a tantalizing character filled with contradictions.
Borgli excels at creating an atmosphere that makes the viewer question whether the scene is happening or a dream. Each dream is like a short and would make a riveting film. It is like having a horror movie short film festival in one movie. I have no idea if Borgli shot “Dream Scenario” using film or a digital camera, but the editing imagines our memory as if it was a film with spliced cells, and the mind occupies multiple planes simultaneously, the past and present, the dream world and reality. Borgli speaks the language of film and creating an instinctual visual logic that any viewer can understand even for such a strange movie. No wonder Aster wanted to direct it, but so soon after “Beau is Afraid” (2023), people would have run the other way.
“Dream Scenario” could have used some Aster merciless, going all the way energy. The film teases the worst-case scenario for Paul then pulls its punches before the angry mob rips him to pieces. I’m notorious for despising when the MCU gets the hero in trouble for a misunderstanding. Borgli sets Paul up without showing how Paul got out of that situation without jail time. Even though the movie begins to deflate as it approaches the denouement, it is still worth a watch for people who enjoy a weird, well-made movie, especially if you are a fan of the cast. Just don’t expect anything too transcendent from the plot arc, which comes down almost as hard as its protagonist.