#38: Dream Scenario (2023) (dir. Kristoffer Borgli)

Note: included above is my audio interview with filmmaker Kristoffer Borgli to accompany this review/analysis :)

Also, since this is a newer film, perhaps come back to this right after you’ve seen it. This isn’t really a movie that is laden with things you could spoil though; but just in case you want to go in knowing nothing, see it first before reading on.

There’s a moment towards the very end of Dream Scenario where I simply wanted to applaud at what I was seeing. It’s been a while since that response was felt with a new film. There have been a few strong moments in 2023 for sure, including Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City which I also wrote about here. I know it’s a bit “too soon” to declare both that film and this one worthy for this Substack since I’m mainly focusing on all-time favorite songs and movies. Perhaps upon rewatches, I’ll think back and go “you kind of overrated this a little bit,” but at this moment in time, I feel justified in deciding to include my favorite film of 2023 here. I know that decision already creates a sense of “hype”, but I’ll elaborate as to why. Most will feel it’s one of the year’s best but I’m not certain if many will walk away thinking it would make their top 250. Honestly I’m second guessing my own response but there’s more than meets the mind with this film. That I would never second guess.

I am someone who revels in dream analysis. I’ve always been an active dreamer going back to childhood, having the luxury of waking up and remembering details upon awakening. So, any story that revolves complicated psychology or neuroethics is bound to be something that immediately catches my attention. The big epiphany of interest in this subject is what steered me into majoring in psychology. Around the time of seeing Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I became invested and intrigued by mind, memory and behavior. I was reading peer-reviewed research papers more than watching movies or making music for a good long while.

As much praise as I’m heaping upon this latest Nicolas Cage vehicle, I can’t deny its flaws either. A good critic will be able to articulate what they are and why they take away from the experience. But this Substack is more akin to a journal, filtered through my love of the arts. I will often forgo critiques when the strengths speak to me, as they did in this case. I am still debating about the thesis of the film - where it ultimately stands about its central character. But this is a good thing. It’s okay to live inside the gray of ambiguity. Though I realize the film does veer into a scientific explanation and becomes a mixed message about cancel culture, but I think it’s better than having a clear answer about a complicated, layered concept.

Though an argument can be made that Dream Scenario becomes less about emotional fragility as it goes along, examining the macro-level sociological implications in place of the psychological, there’s a strong sense of connection towards the complexities of becoming the center of attention. Both of the Borgli films I’ve seen could have the tagline, “do I have your attention please?”

Regardless, it is so wonderful to see a film that not only plays around with surrealism in such a refreshing way, but has a lot on its mind that speaks to the perplexing times we live in. Going in, I had already heard that Dream Scenario was akin to a Charlie Kaufman-esque take on A Nightmare on Elm Street to where it takes a more intellectual approach than the beloved horror franchise. It’s apt, but it’s also so much more than a one-sentence logline. The ideas contained will be something to debate with whomever you watch it with after. Is our lead character one that we can identify with or is he just a selfish schlub? I certainly did at times while recognizing his tendency towards self-delusion.

A script like this is one I wish I would’ve written and have had ideas very similar that this film contains. I’m glad it lived up to my expectations and so happy that it exists. Every once in a while, a movie comes along and speaks to my interests, ideas and manages to find the right balance between escapism and an intellectual experience. Though admittedly, I wasn’t expecting to get as dark as it did later on to where it feels like such a jarring turn. Then again, Kaufman seems to go that route as well - inserting his brand of awkward interaction towards something a bit sinister and comically bleak at times. One of the best examples of this is the funeral monologue in Synecdoche, New York where instead of giving a hopeful sermon, the priest almost revels in how selfish and awful human beings actually are to where he decides he may not want to have anything to do with them. Dream Scenario finds the humor and humanity in the way we connect through intellect, but it also doesn’t steer clear from how things turn.

First and foremost, this is a pitch-dark comedy that will make you laugh so go in expecting that and to some extent, it doesn’t necessarily require thoughtful deconstruction from moviegoers wanting to escape the everyday humdrum. In the end, this is an examination of a fractured human psyche but it finds levity to where the audience I saw it with laughed a bit more uncomfortably than expected. They just may have been taken aback by the direction it goes - this is more than an escape from reality. In fact, our protagonist is even caught up in the mundane, unexciting life of being an everyman - a sweater-wearing professor with a loving wife and daughter - a man most consider to be rather passive and uninteresting.

The actor playing this character is anything but those qualities - the one and only Nicolas Cage, still one our finest actors once again working at the top of his game here. As recently great as he was in Pig, this role is even more substantial in his larger-than-life filmography. It is in conversation with a film that I would consider inferior: The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. Both comment on what happens when art is reduced to meme culture or certain predisposed expectations.

As Paul Matthews, he performs his teaching job with perfected mediocrity, and seems a fairly mediocre husband and dad, too. With his graying beard, wire-rimmed specs and shiny bald spot, Cage’s Paul is the guy in the room you may tend to ignore. You’d think someone like Paul Giamatti could’ve played this role too; Cage knows when to be subtle and internal. Something weird and random starts happening. Paul Matthews starts prevalently appearing in people’s dreams to an alarming degree. He’s not doing much, often just standing around, but everybody remembers him being there. Nobody can explain why. This is just something that happens. We are not offered an answer as to why nor do we need one. The focus ultimately becomes on how imperfectly human we are, and that we’d rather experience love than the opposite.

Paul and his patient, compassionate wife, Janet (Julianne Nicholson, reliably wonderful) run into someone at the theater, and she too has dreamed about Paul. At a dinner party, several guests discover to their shock that they’ve been dreaming about the same person. This whole concept is itself inspired by an internet meme, the "This Man" publicity stunt. No explanation is given for why Paul is suddenly in everyone's heads, though one possible turn toward the end of the film points to a scientific possibility for the phenomenon rather than a supernatural one. It’s not about the “why this could happen” but the psychological effect it has on everyone. Both on a mass scale and even more importantly, how it changes Paul and his close relationships.

Dream Scenario is definitely a relevant movie for these often-surreal times we find ourselves in. It presents a layered skewering of sudden fame and the complexities surrounding the idea of “cancel culture,” with director Kristoffer Borgli not condemning but examining how it comes to be. He took similar aim with his other brilliant film from this year, Sick of Myself, which is a bit about how attention can become an addiction. (Sadly, the Matthew Sweet song of the same name was not used). Hence the popularity of social media and our desire for clicks/likes. Borgli’s tones in both films veer from the surreal, to hilarious, to sad and cringe-inducing in all the right ways. I couldn’t help but think a little of what Nathan Fielder accomplishes similarly in his work. So, a film like this was bound to appeal to me greatly based on my own predilections and taste.

Cage plays this pitch-perfectly throughout. Never once does he ask for sympathy or revel in gross behavior, keeping his character relatively neutral. Of course, once he starts receiving notoriety, much like anyone else, he tries to use unexpected, sudden fame to further his projects and work which never would’ve gotten any support in the first place. Then once things take a dark turn, we as the audience he’s not to blame. He does lean into meme-worthy histrionics when peoples' dreams turn into nightmares worthy of a horror movie, but mostly this is Cage as you've rarely seen him outside of maybe his work in Adaptation. I would love to see him nominated for yet another fearless performance since he knows how to channel vulnerability when needed (there’s a scene in front of a computer screen that comes to mind). 

Dream Scenario isn't concerned with explaining anything about why Paul is appearing in dreams, turning his attention instead to how the idea would be exploited by others in outlandish, but horribly believable, ways. There’s even a final sequence that truly worked its magic on me - one of those, “I love the movies” moments that made me feel so much affection for everything that came before it. I smiled harder than I have in quite some time and wouldn’t dream of revealing it here. In one way, it’s heartbreaking, in another, what occurs is romantic and charming. Tone management is tricky in a dark satire like this, but every laugh is earned and every emotional beat works in ways all great stories hope to achieve. I guess you can take my biases to heart: I love dreams, dreaming, analyzing them and how weird and playful they can be.

There’s a moment when a former acquaintance of Paul’s says to him: “You’re still looking for the insult in everything.” Perhaps this is a result of his insecurity or a lack of personal accomplishment. Tearing down others (whether out loud or in his mind) is a way to elevate himself. These dreams and the dreamers (eventually becoming influencers) also elevate Paul in the same way we do with Tik-Tok or YouTube. They become the new rock stars more than new rock stars do (unless you’re Billie Eilish, boygenius or Taylor Swift). Paul is clearly unfulfilled with his current life, but in my opinion, being married with a daughter and having a steady career is certainly something to be commended and celebrated. Maybe Paul is content and set in a routine of sorts, but despite having not done anything, he is expecting continued praise for simply just appearing inside the minds of others. Clearly this strange occurrence must contain some kind of mystical purpose? Or maybe it’s just coincidence and some kind of collective connection - perhaps a different kind of virus.

Fame, male inadequacy, inflated egotism - certainly all of these ideas have been explored time and time again. But this filmmaker is interested in how the internal never comfortably co-exists with the external world especially since they contain contrasting variables. There is true discomfort that is inescapable, sometimes while asleep but mostly when we go out into the world. We’re all scared to be here in one way or another. We don’t communicate about it; we just accept reality as its presented. We all accept Taylor Swift is this beacon of positive energy while we accept the fact that meanwhile, hundreds of people are dying every day elsewhere. How does our mind process the sublime with the destructive? Dreams are meant to be a method by which we try to come to terms with various emotions we can’t access or acknowledge during our hours spent awake. Consider me strange but I sometimes can’t wait to go to sleep to see what kind of worlds my mind creates for me - terrifying as they can be.

I started to think more deeply about a film like Mulholland Drive about a decade ago, around the time I started sobbing while watching it and deciding that it was my favorite movie for so many reasons. To me, a lot of David Lynch’s films are also about how both dreams and the expectations surrounding living in reality don’t always make sense. So, he combines both worlds in ways that are devastating and beautiful, because that’s what life seems to be sometimes. Then I go to sleep and dream up a whole different movie of my own design. The only other film that’s also become a favorite that captures that sense is Synecdoche, New York, which really is neck and neck with Mulholland Drive as being an all-time favorite. Though I understand why detractors of both exist - they are indulgent and strangely non-sensical, but I revel in the experience of surprise, awe and head-scratching.

Dream Scenario is not on the same level of those films by any stretch. I can say that perhaps the third act runs out of steam. I would’ve liked more surreal dreamscapes especially once things go off the rails. But the very final moment moves me so much because it is at once bittersweet and a moment of creative triumph. We are the music makers, and we are the dreams of the dream. Moments throughout feel like they have several meanings or interpretations, yet it does eventually settle as being a treatise on social media and cancel culture which has let down some critics already. I read that in the end, it doesn’t “transcend its great premise.” Perhaps it could’ve been more - maybe if Michel Gondry had gotten a hold of this, it would’ve been even more bizarre, but he’s tackled similar subject matter in another film I love, The Science of Sleep. I’d say Dream Scenario is right in conversation with that one. I still love what I got despite the fact that maybe it could’ve been even more of a transcendent work of art.

At this point in time, I can safely say that I truly love this movie and don’t see another surpassing it for 2023 (still have a lot to see so I’m probably wrong). I’ll likely eat these words and think, “well maybe it shouldn’t have been included here yet since I’ve only seen it once.” But I do know it speaks to me and my interests more than anything that I’ve seen in a while. I know Asteroid City also played with reality vs. “all the world’s a stage” themes as well. I still wish Beau is Afraid worked better than it does as a whole (though that first hour is still among the best hours of the year). Dream Scenario made me laugh harder and warmed my heart even more in the end. There is certainly an influx of ideas flowing in this film and that’s what excites me the most even if some are more fully realized than others. Plus, you have a central performance that I really responded to and a new filmmaker who has an exciting future for whatever he decides to do next. Oh, and did I mention that I love dreams and dreaming?

Don’t normally like to end on a quote but how I could resist this one:”Cage should win the Oscar for his post orgasm face alone.” - Brian W Collins