Dream Situation has some amusing with the collective subconscious, nevertheless it struggles to practice thru on its pleasant premise.
Few faces have burned deeper into the collective subconscious than Nicolas Cage’s. As an extraordinary however charming big name of many blockbusters, and the center piece of unending web memes, Cage has persevered within the cultural zeitgeist in some shape or some other for a number of a long time, at the same time as his standing as an A-list actor has fluctuated. He’s the easiest selection to guide Kristoffer Borgli’s Dream Situation, a film by which other people all over the world begin to dream about the similar individual (performed by way of Cage), who floats thru some surreal panorama like a work of psychological detritus. In any case, who amongst us hasn’t at one level or some other idly contemplated Nicolas Cage?
In Dream Situation, Cage isn’t any celebrity. He’s a nebbishy biology professor named Paul Matthews, a balding chump who turns out to mix into the background even if he’s at house consuming dinner together with his spouse and children. Clad in dishevelled slacks and a half-zip, he’s an alarming however a laugh sight when he begins shooting up in goals, walking by way of and giving a sheepish wave whilst differently taking part in no function within the reverie. It’s a shockingly compelling pitch for a film, a low-key sci-fi state of affairs with a metatextual twist. However Borgli takes it in a depressingly mundane path, squeezing a surreal fantasy into an all-too-contemporary take at the strictures of famous person.
Given the extraordinary peaks and valleys of his occupation, Cage clearly understands the odd trappings of status. That makes him Dream Situation’s largest asset, and he delivers a efficiency on par together with his fresh standout paintings in Pig and The Insufferable Weight of Large Skill. Paul first seems in his daughter’s dream, raking leaves and ignoring her as she’s pelted with mysterious hail. As the tale progresses, he learns that people—previous flames, buddies of buddies, lots of his scholars, even general strangers—are having an identical studies. Footage of Paul’s face unfold on-line like an old-school viral sensation, a extra practical model of the “This Guy” meme that took off on the web years in the past.
It’s a scrumptious, attention-grabbing perception, exploring no longer simplest the theory of a shared subconscious but in addition the techniques by which the shared awareness of being on-line would possibly warp and alter it. Paul’s preliminary visitor roles in goals really feel spontaneous, however the extra other people pay attention about them, the extra he transforms from a nonthreatening background actor into an energetic player. In the beginning, Paul hopes to leverage his status towards publishing a long-gestating science ebook, however his dream-avatar quickly turns into extra horrifying, scaring and even attacking other people as they sleep. In a question of weeks, Paul is going from a happy fad to a global determine of hate, whilst arguing that he has not anything to do with what is going on in other people’s heads.
Cage has a company grab on simply how cloyingly pathetic Paul can also be, portraying his more and more sweaty desperation as he scrambles to regain his dream personality’s unique cutesiness. Paul’s timid spouse, Janet (the always-strong Julianne Nicholson), briefly acknowledges how ill-equipped he’s for any form of status, however she’s no longer above the use of their marriage to advance professionally. Michael Cera swoops in for an excessively humorous prolonged cameo as Trent, the pinnacle of a advertising and marketing company known as Ideas? who imagines Paul as a unconscious pitchman who invades other people’s goals whilst keeping a Sprite can. In the meantime, Trent’s assistant, Molly (the splendidly sardonic Dylan Gelula), confesses that Paul is an irrepressible Lothario in her goals—one thing he struggles to compare as much as in actual lifestyles.
Those are all fitfully humorous instructions to take the basis in, however Borgli (a Norwegian director whose prior characteristic In poor health of Myself is an acidly humorous romp) can’t truly pick out a style. As an alternative, Dream Situation morphs from a Charlie Kaufman–esque draw back comedy right into a simmering nightmare mystery, staging some truly unsettling hallucinations however failing to knit them into any higher narrative. Sooner or later, Paul turns to this sort of dark-web status that many a “canceled” determine is attracted to, doing a ebook excursion in France and seeking to money in on his personal notoriety—a tale path that feels lazy and mundane. Cage is sufficient to stay Dream Situation fascinating, promoting Paul’s psychological unraveling with panache; he’s continuously been a performer who relishes dancing at the border between charismatic and unhinged, swinging between the 2 in one line studying. However the film fails to compare that deftness of tone, settling into bland, unimaginative normality—a disappointing flip for any such colourful thought.