TIFF 23: DREAM SCENERIO - Has Nicolas Cage Been In Your Dreams Lately Too?

 

Nicolas Cage in an A24 film, that is definitely a film festival dream scenario. This week at the Toronto International Dream Scenario premiered. Cage is an actor that I will watch in anything. He makes the act of raking leaves fascinating. It also helps that a glass patio table inexplicably smashes to pieces by a pool.

Nicolas Cage plays college professor Paul Matthews. He is also the patriarch of a family of four.  He has also infused Paul with a nasally, whiny voice. Matthews has designs on being published, he just hasn't written anything yet. 

Paul meets a colleague to complain to her that she has taken his idea and is about to publish an article. He secretly records this conversation on his phone. Later is wife Janet (Julianne Nicholson) asks him how the meeting goes. He passes it off as a case of misunderstanding. Janet specifically asks Paul if he recorded the conversation. He answers that he did not, because it seemed unethical, even though he did indeed record the meeting. 

Paul and Janet run into one of Paul's old girlfriends who informs them that Paul has been showing up in her dreams lately. Paul doesn't do anything in the dreams. He is just there. Paul and his old flame meet up for lunch. She asks Paul if it okay to write about him in her dreams for an article that she is writing. 

Paul, average, plain, boring, not very memorable Paul keeps showing up in people's dreams. Paul checks his social media and receives over a hundred messages from people who claim he has has been in their dreams. What are the reasons? The Mandela effect in dreams, astral projection. Overnight Paul becomes a celebrity. He starts getting interviewed. His classes are packed with people.

Paul keeps showing up in dreams. People being stalked by a blood-covered killer. An earthquake. There is Paul walking aloofly amongst the surreal happenings. He just kind of bumbles into people's dreams and says nothing and does nothing.

The dreams keep happening. Paul's celebrity grows. The answers stay elusive.

I love surreal movies that play with the audience perception of what is real and what is imagined. Writer and Director Kristoffer Borgli delivers. The film has vibes of Being John Malkovich. Dream Scenario shines when the dreams of people are shown.