Dream Scenario (2023) (dir. Kristoffer Borgli)
Be sure to click the audio player above to hear my brief interview with writer/director Kristoffer Borgli who was kind enough to spend some time talking with me all about the best film of 2023
Sweet memes are made of this. It’s wild to see a film that not only plays around with surreality in such a refreshing way, but has a lot on its mind that speaks to the complicated times we live in. Going in, I had already heard that Dream Scenario was akin to a Charlie Kaufman-esque take on A Nightmare on Elm Street to where it takes a more intellectual approach than the beloved horror franchise. It’s apt, but it’s also so much more. It’s the best film of 2023 so far for a lot of reasons. It’s a script I wish I would’ve written and have had ideas very similar that this film contains. I’m glad it lived up to my expectations and so happy that it exists.
First and foremost, this is just a wonderfully entertaining dark comedy that doesn’t require thoughtful analysis from moviegoers wanting to escape the everyday humdrum. In fact, our protagonist is even caught up in the mundane life of being an every-man - a sweater-wearing professor with a loving wife and daughter, that most consider to be rather passive and bland. The actor playing this character is anything but - the one and only Nicolas Cage, still one our finest actors once again working at the top of his game here. As recently great as he was in Pig, this role is even more substantial in his larger that life filmography.
As Paul Matthews, he performs his teaching job with perfected mediocrity, and seems a fairly mediocre husband and dad, too. With his graying beard, wire-rimmed specs and shiny bald spot, Cage’s Paul is the guy in the room you may tend to ignore. You’d think someone like Paul Giamatti could’ve played this role too; Cage knows when to be subtle and internal. Something weird and random starts happening. Paul Matthews starts prevalently appearing in people’s dreams. He’s not doing much, often just standing around, but everybody remembers him being there. Nobody can explain why. This is just something that happens.
Paul and his patient, compassionate wife, Janet (Julianne Nicholson, reliably wonderful) run into someone at the theater, and she too has dreamed about Paul. At a dinner party, several guests discover to their shock that they’ve been dreaming about the same person. This whole concept is itself inspired by an internet meme, the "This Man" publicity stunt. No explanation is given for why Paul is suddenly in everyone's heads, though one possible turn toward the end of the film points to a scientific possibility for the phenomenon rather than a supernatural one. It’s not about the “why this is happening,” but the psychological effect it has on everyone involved. On a mass scale and even more importantly, how it changes Paul and his close relationships.
Dream Scenario is a relevant movie for the times we find ourselves in. It presents a layered skewering of sudden fame and the complexities surrounding the idea of “cancel culture,” with director Kristoffer Borgli not condemning but examining how it comes to be. He took similar aim with his other brilliant film from this year, Sick of Myself, which is a bit about how attention can become an addiction. (Sadly, the Matthew Sweet song of the same name was not used). Hence the popularity of social media and our desire for clicks/likes. Borgli’s tones in both films are surreal, hilarious, sad and cringe-inducing in all the right ways. I couldn’t help but think a little of what Nathan Fielder accomplishes similarly in his work. So a film like this was bound to appeal to me greatly based on my own predilections and taste.
Cage plays this pitch-perfectly throughout. Never once does ask for sympathy or revel in gross behavior, keeping his character relatively neutral. Of course once he starts receiving notoriety, much like anyone else, he tries to use fame to further his projects and work which never would’ve gotten any support in the first place. Then once things take a dark turn, we as the audience he’s not to blame. He does lean into meme-worthy histrionics when peoples' dreams turn into nightmares worthy of a horror movie, but mostly this is Cage as you've rarely seen him outside of maybe his work in Adaptation. I would love to see him nominated for yet another fearless performance.
Dream Scenario isn't concerned with explaining anything about why Paul is appearing in dreams, turning his attention instead to how the idea would be exploited by others in outlandish, but horribly believable, ways. There’s even an ending that truly worked its magic on me - one of those, “I love the movies” moments that made me feel so much affection for everything that came before it. In one way, it’s heartbreaking, in another, what occurs is romantic and charming. Tone management is tricky in a dark satire like this, but every laugh is earned and every emotional beat works in ways all great stories hope to achieve. I guess you can take my biases to heart: I love dreams, dreaming, analyzing them and how weird and playful they can be.
The best film of 2023 is a pitch-black existential comedy with a lot on its mind about unexamined fragility, ego, society's need to commodify and meme culture. It's a great showcase for Cage and proof that filmmaker Kristoffer Borgli has a lot to offer with this and his last feature. Dream Scenario is weird, imaginative, laugh-out-loud funny and surprisingly moving by the end. Most importantly: it’s curious about the characters and the many changes they go through - warts and all. Truly hoping everyone else finds this to be special and supports it: we need thought-provoking, insightful, twisted films like this. I will be thinking about and writing more for sure. Who knows, maybe the world of this movie will find its way into my dreams for years to come.
Check out my 5Years Substack where I’ve even more rambly thoughts about this film:
Dream Scenario (2023) (dir. Kristoffer Borgli) (substack.com)
