Spoiler Free Review:

My friend, Jeremy, and I will often send each other movies we hope to one day watch together. One day, one of us sent the other a link to the trailer for the movie Dream Scenario, a 2023 film starring Nick Cage as a man who unwillingly begins to show up in people’s dreams. The trailer was the perfect amount of mystery and comedy for us (plus Nick Cage is awesome), and we knew we wanted to see it when it hit theaters…

Skip ahead two years and we never got around to watching Dream Scenario together. Nevertheless, the desire to watch it was still there, as we still expected an interesting comedy with the same powerhouse performance Nick Cage brings to every role. We did not end up watching together, because I, for some reason, was under the impression that Jeremy had watched the movie on HBO Max without me. So, alone in my room one night, browsing for something to watch, I decided it was finally the time to play catch-up.

Again, going into Dream Scenario, I was expecting a comedy. I cannot stress enough how important that expectation was in setting my experience for the film. Did I laugh? Of course, it had many funny moments after all. But it’s also a horror film. At 1 AM, alone in my room, I quickly found myself unable to sleep or stop looking at every doorway in my room frightened that Nicholas Cage may burst through it at any moment. Ultimately, this feeling subsided as the movie progressed and a sense of angst began to well inside of me. It’s the type of angst that transcends second-hand embarrassment or reflecting on every action a character takes with, “I wouldn’t do it that way.” Born from a deep empathy for the protagonist, this angst makes me feel that my world is falling apart alongside theirs.

Side Note: I have only felt this way with this intensity during three movies. Spirited Away (when her parents become pigs), Dinner for Schmucks (the whole time), and this film. This does not mean I don’t feel anxious from other films, but this level of empathetic anxiety is infrequent.

Finally, the film became more grounded as the movie moved towards a resolution. Doors were closed, the world in the story moved on, and in its tremendous final scene, the movie moved me in a way I had never anticipated.

With a beautiful score, strong artistic vision, stellar acting, and an interesting premise, Dream Scenario managed to make me laugh, feel terror, and experience heartbreak like no movie has managed before. Much like the music of the movie’s final scene, the movie itself crescendos from a silly twist-of-fate thrown onto an unsuspecting everyman to a story about accepting reality and living with the consequences of our actions.

Anyways, here is a meme format that I like and an original meme I made to summarize my experience of the film based on the time elapsed (abstracted) throughout the film:

Spoilers for Dream Scenario (2023) going forward. Please watch the movie prior to reading the rest of the article if you are not okay with spoilers or you want to experience the next section as it was meant to be experienced.

Seriously.

And I Can’t Stop Crying

Last September, I wrote a journal entry for myself about my habit of “mourning futures that will no longer exist”. I wrote about a funeral for a friend that I had recently attended. Even though people from all parts of her life were sharing happy stories about her, we were all sad that day. I thought about the juxtaposition of those two feelings and tried to understand how we could be so happy while speaking about her yet so sad about losing her. I concluded that for many of us “the past is where happiness lies, and the future is what’s sad.” As many of us were finding joy in the memories we had made with her, each of us was also mourning the loss of a future we thought she would be a part of. A future that was no longer possible.

When I was in high school, my father passed away unexpectedly. In the days following his death, I had three dreams that included him as a major character. In the first one, he and I walked around and spoke about nothing in particular. In the second, he was driving his old minivan, and I was chasing after it. In the third, we walked together, but he was unable to speak to me. Though he would show up in other dreams throughout my life with varying levels of interaction between him and my dream counterpart, he never appeared with the same consistency as those three consecutive nights. Three years later my grandmother passed, and though I did not have the same sequence of dreams, she too shows up in my dreams from time to time.

Though it’s been many years, no matter which of them shows up in my dreams, I have always had the same thought upon waking up.

“I haven’t spoken to them in a while. I should call them.”

Inevitably, I wake up more, and the line between my dream and reality becomes more defined. Within a few short seconds, I remember why I haven’t spoken to them in a while and why I can’t call them.

In the final scene of Dream Scenario, Nick Cage’s character, Paul, attempts to enter the dream of his now ex-wife, Janet. He manufactures elements of the dream to fit the description of a romantic fantasy she had mentioned to him prior to their divorce. He arrives to save her from a fire while he is dressed in David Byrne’s iconic, oversized suit from the Talking Heads. He reaches through a fire and brings her with him, so they can walk and dance in the street. As they dance, he stares into her eyes like he used to, and a look of melancholy and regret drags across his face. Breaking the silence of their dance, he utters, “I wish this was real.”

Throughout the film, other characters are genuinely affected by their dreams, even in their daily lives. Meanwhile, Paul refuses to accept these dreams as a form of reality. This refusal disables him from fully enjoying the only moments he can spend with his wife at the end of the film. Rather than enjoying his time with her, he finds himself, even as they dance, longing for the reality he can no longer have. Even while asleep, he can feel the pain I feel when I wake up from a dream where I had a chance to speak with someone from my life who I can no longer be with. Whether it’s a dance or a few exchanged words, we both mourn the futures we can no longer have with those we love.

Over the course of the last four weeks, I have rewatched the final scene of Dream Scenario over a dozen times. Three of those times were the morning after I first watched the film. The others were whenever the mood struck me. The scene didn’t bring me to tears when I first watched it. It doesn’t always bring me to tears now. But sometimes it does. Sometimes, in the moments long after I have rewatched the scene, the music of Owen Pallett will continue to play in my head, and I will burst into tears, silently wailing to myself. My mind flashes with all of the futures that will never be, all the realities I will only ever experience in my dreams. And as tears stream down my face, the voice of Nicholas Cage echoes in my mind… “I wish this was real.”