Dream Scenario

Year 17, Day 278 - 10/5/25 - Movie #5,161

BEFORE: It would be very easy for me to drop in another Nicolas Cage film here - and also make sure that it's a horror film. "Longlegs" just made it to my streaming watchlist, it's about a serial killer, and "Arcadian" is another one, a post-apocalyptic film. That would sure solve my problem about not being able to drop the film I want to drop in November. However, it's not the BEST solution, because based on the limited number of days in October, thanks to an upcoming vacation, that would push me over the legal limit for horror films this year. Also, both of those films look like they could help me link more films next October, or perhaps the October after that - I can't help but see the possibilities with those casts, they could really help me turn a few small chains into one BIG chain, and each year, that's the challenge that gets harder. 

So Nicolas Cage carries over from "Mom and Dad", and I'm just going to watch TWO films with him now, and one more later in October. These three films used to be consecutive, but remember that I had to change around my horror chain this year due to a bad link, however I was able to keep MOST of the same films, but remove four of them, replace those four with a different four, and shuffle things around a bit.  So I'll follow a new link tonight, but Mr. Cage will be back here in about 9 days with another comedy-horror hybrid. Makes sense? 

THE PLOT: An ordinary family man finds his life turned upside down when strangers suddenly start seeing him in their dreams. 

AFTER: OK, so this is not an outright "horror" movie, but it's got some elements that are sort of horrific, as the dreamscape is full of nightmares as well as dreams - but I'm getting ahead of myself. 

It's a real thinker of a movie, though, because it puts forth a concept that seems like it should be impossible - hundreds, thousands of people maybe, are having dreams about a very normal man named Paul Matthews, who is a professor of evolutionary biology at a mid-level university. This phenomenon suggests that there is some kind of collective unconscious, or subconscious, that would allow people to visit one another during their sleep cycles, although it's never really established if Paul is somehow traveling through other people's dreams, or if it's just the idea of Paul that's coming to them at night. Both seem equally unlikely, and since Paul doesn't understand how this can be possible, it's safe to assume he's not doing this intentionally, nor does he have some kind of super-power telepathic ability.  

Once the first few friends of Paul mention that they've been having dreams about him lately, and a couple of those people get together and realizing that they share this, that this becomes a measurable thing. Then once the news breaks, more and more people are able to identify the person they've seen in their dreams, however at some point the "Mandela effect" comes into play, some people may claim incorrectly to have seen him at night, others may believe that they've experienced this, but instead have been influenced to believe this from news reports or social media.  The memory is a tricky thing, like you may or may not be able to remember your dreams, or they may fade after you've been awake for an hour and your brain manages to sort out what's real and what isn't. 

Also, assuming that Paul is visiting other people's dreams, how is he doing this, even if it's unintentional?  He doesn't seem to DO anything in people's dreams, not at first anyway, so what then is the point of him being there? Is this how his brain sorts things out, by taking a walk through other people's fantasies and observing? If he's a scientist, maybe he has a natural propensity to investigate human behavior, and therefore thoughts?  And if that's the case, why doesn't he remember what he sees in other people's dreams when so many other people are able to remember him being in theirs?  

Then a few things happen to Paul that change his (unlikely) positive outlook on life - he meets with an old colleague who's getting ready to publish a research paper on the behavior of ants that seems remarkably similar to research that Paul did back in college, however he never followed through by publishing it, and he can't quite bring himself to accuse her of plagiarism. Then Paul has coffee with an ex-girlfriend, Claire, and she wants to publish a paper about the dreams she's been having about him, so this probably makes him feel like a test subject, in addition to a scientific loser who's never published anything on his own.  

Then the news story breaks about him appearing in so many dreams at night, and things start to snowball - he's contacted by an advertising agency that wants to manage/exploit him and/or sell the rights to his life story, both of which could be very lucrative for him. But he's got concerns about how this will all be handled, because he still wants to leverage this somehow to publish a more scientific sort of book, and also not be a total sell-out. This is quite honorable of him, but also very stupid when you think of how much money influencers get these days for filling their social media accounts with advertising. Hell, every network's morning shows AND the evening entertainment shows like "Access Hollywood" and "Entertainment Tonight" all have five minutes of "deals" in every episode, which is just a repackaged home-shopping network, and it's quite shameless. So naturally this ad agency wants to see if they can use Paul to shill to everyone in the country while they sleep - I mean, that's eight hours EVERY DAY where people aren't being advertised to at all, they really should do something about that, it's an untapped market. 

Things get worse - a crazy man who may (or may not) have had dreams about Paul breaks into his house and threatens to kill him, also one of the women who works at the PR firm claims to have had erotic dreams about Paul (which Paul certainly would remember if he could) and tries to re-enact them in real life, however it ends poorly. And too soon, if you catch my meaning. On top of this, Paul's ex-colleague publishes her article, and all of this causes a change in Paul's presence in the dreamscape. Instead of just passively observing people, the dream Paul starts becoming violent and sadistic, and once people start reporting these dreams, he's perceived as some kind of middle-class Freddy Krueger, though he's done nothing intentionally wrong, and may not be responsible at all for trying to kill people in their dreams, this could be just the way dreams work, but the damage is done. His students stop coming to his class and claim to have PTSD, and this leads the college to place him on academic leave, despite him having tenure. 

Paul attempts to issue a public apology, but it's so cringe-worthy and "self-serving" that it does more harm in the public eye than good. He should have followed the Louis C.K. model, just disappear for a few years and by then there will be so many more cancelled people who did much worse things that you can get un-cancelled. Seriously, who did more damage, Louis C.K. or Diddy? One's going to jail for four years, rightfully so, and the other was just in career jail for a while - but he started touring again just two years later, and now he's out on tour again and would seem to be back. David Letterman similarly cancelled himself for a few years and then ended up with a Netflix show, so I think the key to improving your image may lie in taking some time off, the audience sometimes has short memories. I mean, Letterman was no Jeffrey Epstein, but he fooled around some, however he also admitted it and tried to make amends. 

Back in the film, Paul ends up on a book tour, he finally got his book printed, however it's about the dream phenomenon that he somehow started, and not about animal evolution in any way. Still, he gets to travel the world on the publisher's dime and it only cost him his marriage and maybe his self-respect. Still, a lot of people would take that trade-off, just saying. There's a bunch of stuff in this film that doesn't make a lot of sense, but did we expect "Being John Malkovich" to make sense? No, of course not, it's a step outside of reality for two hours. As for me, I saw my ex-boss last night at an event at the theater, so I know who will be making an appearance in MY dreamscape really soon.

Directed by Kristoffer Borgli

Also starring Julianne Nicholson (last seen in "Blonde"), Lily Bird (last seen in "Beau Is Afraid"), Jessica Clement (last seen in "Life" (2015)), Star Slade, David Klein, Kaleb Horn, Liz Adjei, Paula Boudreau (last seen in "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium"), Marnie McPhail (last seen in "The Greatest Game Ever Played"), Tim Meadows (last seen in "Mean Girls" (2024)), Dylan Baker (last seen in "The Benefactor"), Maev Beaty (also last seen in "Beau Is Afraid"), Marc Coppola (last seen in "The Bling Ring"), Krista Bridges, Noah Lamanna (last seen in "Luckiest Girl Alive"), Nneka Elliott (ditto), Jeremy Levick, Jim Armstrong, Ben Steele Caldwell, Agape Mngomezulu, Stephen R. Hart (last seen in "It: Chapter Two"), Leah Stanley, Sofia Banzhaf, Al Warren, Thomas Mitchell, Dylan Gelula (last seen in "Her Smell"), Michael Cera (last seen in "Barbie"), Kate Berlant (last seen in "Don't Worry Darling"), Caleb Weatherbee, Cara Volchoff, Greer Cohen, James Collins (last seen in "Nightmare Alley"), Jennifer Wigmore (last seen in "Dick"), Ramona Gilmour-Darling, Jessie-Ann Kohlman, Alton Mason (last seen in "Elvis"), Noah Centineo (last seen in "Black Adam"), Josh Richards, Amber Midthunder (last seen in "The Marksman"), Nicholas Braun (last seen in "Get a Job"), Lily Gao, Philip van Martin, Richard Jutras (last seen in "No Good Deed" (2002)), Nicole Leroux (last seen in "Moonfall"), Jordan Raf, Domenic di Rosa (last seen in "Pieces of a Woman") and the voice of Talia Schlanger.

RATING: 6 out of 10 zebras in a herd