Movie Review : Dream Scenario (2023)
Whether they'll admit it or not, everyone wants to be famous to some degree. Being seen and heard is a need. But it doesn't guarantee you're going to be understood. Every famous person will tell you : they all suffer from a weird conundrum that never affects everyday people (except when they go viral on internet). People constantly assign the most random meaning to whatever they're doing. Kristoffer Borgli's movie Dream Scenario is not about this conundrum at all, except that it totally is.
Dream Scenario tells the story of Paul Matthews (Nicolas Cage), a mild-mannered biology professor who everyone dreams about for an unknown reason. He's not doing anything in particular in other people's dreams. He's just there. As Paul starts begrudgingly accepting his fame, the dreams change in nature and now "dream Paul" is raping and killing everyone while they’re asleep like a middle-aged Freddy Krueger. The poor guy is getting cancelled from his own life for things happening in other people's minds.
Perception is Reality
What happens to Paul Matthews in Dream Scenario is that he loses control of what his image means to other people. It's also what happens when people become memes or go viral in any way, shape or form. Real Life Paul is a mild-mannered biology teacher, but Dream Paul (who’s not Paul) weirds people out at first and then terrifies them when he starts killing. The image of Paul, which he has no control over because it's created in everyone else's mind, becomes how Paul exists in the world.
Is Paul a murderous psycho because everyone believe he is?
Of course not. But Dream Paul colonizes everyone's else most intimate place: the inside of their mind, so they're understandably terrified of him. The perception of Paul is not Paul, but it becomes reality for Paul as he starts becoming estranged from everyone. The perception of him becomes his reality. I love how the movie doesn't even pretend to build Dream Paul as somewhat of a supernatural antagonist for Paul to defeat. It's clear within the paradigm of Dream Scenario that he doesn't exist. He's a fucking dream.
That's why I've interpreted Dream Scenario as a metaphor for the perils of hyperconnectivity. That when your image belongs to other people, it empowers them to create meaning and before you know it, they've built in their minds (and on the internet) someone who looks like you that has nothing to do with who you really are. That’s what people like Taylor Swift have to put up with all the time (although she monetized it). That’s what happens to people who become memes and that's what unwittingly happened to Paul.
Isn't it a little too nerdy to be fun?
Maybe a little? Although, does a movie really need a breathless plot when it has Nicolas Cage doing some of his best work in it? Dream Scenario is a more cerebral and contemplative affair than it presents itself to be. There's no moral angle, except perhaps when a helpless Paul tries to indulge a woman who has sexual fantasies about him and miserably fails, which changes Dream Paul from a peaceful wanderer to a sex criminal and a sadist. It’s the only moral angle to Dream Scenario I can come up with.
Otherwise, it's a movie about someone slowly losing agency over his image and everything he's ever loved. Maybe it's when he lost his self-image as a faithful middle-aged married man that he corrupted his projection of him? I don’t know. There's a lot of stuff to Dream Scenario for its 102 minutes runtime. It achieved at creating a surreal and disquieting atmosphere, but there's a lot of material about Jungian psychology that could be unpacked by the nerdiest of the nerds, but fortunately this isn't me!
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Should you watch Dream Scenario ? Hell yeah, but don't expect an emotional experience. It was co-produced by creator of emotional experiences extraordinaire Ari Aster, but it's not that kind of movie. Dream Scenario feels like helpless watching the world rot through a funhouse mirror like Paul Matthews and part of the fun lies in just letting go and accepting the inevitable. It’s more grim than advertised, but it's also weirdly peaceful. The world is falling apart whether you want it or not. All you can do it let go, like Paul.
