This 91%-Rated Ari Aster Produced Dramedy Is One of the Best Movies Released in 2023
A satire on the vices of modern society that is both fascinating and original.
Dream Scenario is the third feature film by Norwegian director Kristoffer Borgli. The movie was produced by Ari Aster and premiered at the Toronto Film Festival.
The director's great success was the invitation to cast Nicolas Cage in the lead role. It is hard to imagine anyone else in the role of Paul Matthews. The actor is ideal for the role of an ordinary professor who falls into a strange fame.
What Is Dream Scenario About?
A boring university biology professor, Paul Matthews, and his beloved wife, Janet, are raising two daughters: Sophie and Hannah.
The professor becomes a world celebrity – for some inexplicable reason, the man appears in the dreams of thousands of people around the world. While some misfortune befalls the sleeping man, Paul calmly walks by.
Matthews gives interviews and enjoys the fame, but in reality he just wants to publish a long-planned book about ants. Paul's life is turned upside down again when the professor begins torturing and killing in people's dreams.
Dream Scenario Is an Absurd But Charming Story
The original and creepy-funny concept immediately draws attention to Dream Scenario. Humans are unable to control the unconscious. Even Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise proved the vulnerability of sleepers and linked dreams to reality.
However, Paul has no idea how he gets into other people's dreams and how to stop visiting other people's heads. The situation is surreal on all sides: neither the professor nor the sleepers understand anything.
Dream Scenario Touches on Modern Social Issues
The author is not very interested in telling the mechanism of a strange phenomenon and inventing some kind of crazy answer. The Norwegian director creates the conditions for a funny story and places an ordinary family man at the center of the plot.
Borgli is interested in the reaction mechanisms of modern society. In the pursuit of a sensation and even a momentary loud news that may not interest anyone tomorrow, Paul is attacked by media and social networks instantly turn him into a star.
One can only pity Matthews, who was always in the shadows and deep down wanted to bring fire to life. The teacher had no control over other people's dreams and then over his own destiny.