‘Dream Scenario’ review: Going viral can be a nightmare

Nicolas Cage hits a new career peak in Dream Scenario, Kristoffer Borgli’s funny/freaky tale of fleeting celebrity and the endless fallout.

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There’s a difference between becoming successful and becoming famous. Success means advancing in a particular field so well that you’re supported and maybe praised for the specific type of work you do in the world. Fame, especially nowadays, means being recognized by a large group of people for something you did that you likely had no intention of becoming recognized for. It’s easy to confuse success and fame, with some people trying to use the former to create the latter. The trick is to remember that fame is fleeting and with social media accelerating the presence of everything that happens to anyone in today’s climate, the timeline is shorter than ever. Can any kind of notoriety be reverse-engineered into a legitimate validation? One can dream.

Said “one” in Dream Scenario — from writer/director Kristoffer Borgli — is underwhelming college professor Paul Matthews (Nicolas Cage). He’s got a stable job teaching biology to a nearly empty classroom, lives comfortably with a loving wife (Julianne Nicholson) who has a bit more presence in their relationship, and two daughters rightly seeing him as the lamest person ever.

One day, an old girlfriend runs into Paul and tells him he’s been on her mind in the form of freaky dreams where he’s nothing more than a bystander. Then his students tell him they’re having their own weird dreams where Paul keeps walking on by. Then it’s his colleagues. Then it’s his kids. Then it’s the entire nation. Paul is flabbergasted (and a bit flattered) at his sudden celebrity and tries to see what it can do for his career. But when Paul becomes a nightmare to his dreamers, his fame starts to curdle no matter how much he tries to defend himself.

First things first: Nicolas Cage.

For someone who has become one of the most recognizable and unique movie stars (for better or worse) of the last four decades, it’s heartwarming to see Cage still find new levels of brilliance this late in his career. Though the Oscar-winner wears snakeskin jackets and drives a gold Lamborghini out of his Las Vegas home, many of Cage’s career highlights came from when he played corny losers facing ridiculous odds (Raising Arizona, The Rock, Adaptation).

Paul Matthews may be the dorkiest, corniest character Cage has ever taken on and he rises to the occasion by making Paul fail miserably in almost any scenario. From rehearsing bashful head shakes so he can appear cool in conversation to farting in the middle of a “handsy” affair, Cage reveals himself to be a king of cringe comedy as he accepts every form of kooky punishment the movie throws at Paul.

His awkward body language is also helped by his wardrobe and overall design: a basic puffer jacket with the ratty fur-lined hood that he never wears, faded pull-over sweaters with a tiny top zipper that shows an even blander plaid collared shirt underneath, and his Friar Tuck baldness mixed with a bushy beard that’s part goofy grandpa and part unremarkable tax accountant. It’s such an easily-forgettable look for the main character of a movie, you’d think Paul was a secret member of the Men in Black. Every element of Paul is meant to be pitiful and drab, but Cage’s comedic timing and quirky delivery flesh him out into someone you can root for and wince at in equal doses.

It’s not a one-man show, though.

Nicholson is as delightfully dorky playing Paul’s wife and has strong chemistry with Cage. The two bounce off of each other like best friends on an adventure together, to the point where the movie could’ve still worked if it was more of a kooky romantic comedy between the couple. The choice to have Michael Cera, Kate Berlant, and Dylan Gelula use their very distinct millennial auras to exemplify the grating desperation of modern corporate marketing is particularly inspired. Even SNL vet Tim Meadows has a few moments rolling his eyes at Paul taking his sudden fame way too seriously. Everyone does a great job playing off of Cage’s awkwardness while adding to his feature-length misery.

Misery via vanity is not a foreign concept to Kristoffer Borgli, having previously mocked the despicable lengths an attention-seeking narcissist will go to in Sick of Myself. Whereas that movie used beauty as a motivator for its lead’s misery, the poison in Dream Scenario is validation via viral fame. The basic structure of the script is an easily predictable rise-and-fall tale of hubris, but it’s elevated by Borgli mixing the modern-day influence of social media with touches of strange dream sequences and the quirky demeanor of his characters.

The comedy is pitch-perfect.

Though some dreamers have to evade murders and crocodiles in their sleep, they’re also members of our current desensitized society and find it so random that this boring-looking guy keeps showing up in their most horrifying fantasies. It’s only when the trending topic of Paul suddenly becomes homicidal in their nightmares for absolutely no reason that the world turns on him.

Even the strangest form of internet celebrity has no control to it and can take more than it gives. It’s a message that could be annoyingly preachy in the hands of a basic filmmaker, but Borgli puts in enough little touches to make it a fun ride. The comedy is pitch-perfect via Paul’s awkward social demeanor and the occasional splashes of physical gags. Borgli also edited the film and he knows how to punctuate each scene with sudden cuts that act as good punchlines and keep the movie’s momentum going smooth.

Though predictable, Dream Scenario has more than enough comedy and personality to stand on its own…for the first two acts. Then Borgli has to close the story in the final act and things get a bit scrambled. He tries to touch on the influencer world and *gulp* cancel culture to the point where the movie trips over itself right before the finish line. The former plot point is somewhat funny, but comes right out of nowhere and feels more like the rough draft of a sketch from I Think You Should Leave that’s waiting for Tim Robinson to put his aggressive twist on it.

The movie trips over itself right before the finish line.

As for the dreaded cancellation point, Borgli touches on it so briefly that it’s almost pointless to bring up in the story. Paul makes a tearful video apology that goes about as well as most last-ditch efforts by embarrassing YouTubers, but the continuation of his downfall is excessive even for a movie as ridiculous as this. Compare it to Todd Field’s TÁR, where its title character had such a violent response to her own downfall that composing an orchestration at an anime convention certainly seemed fitting. But Paul’s fate in Dream Scenario is so bitter for such an unremarkable person that it almost leaves a taste too sour for the movie’s own good, only saved by a somewhat sweet ending.

Then again, it’s all the more impressive that Dream Scenario still survives on its funny and freaky majority lead by two off-kilter artists (Cage and Borgli) at the top of their game. It rides and dies on how to execute its bizarre premise and hits almost all the right beats in terms of tone, pacing, visuals, and message. Most other movies trying to talk about how hollow modern fame is could easily be seen as preachier than an afterschool special. But Dream Scenario melds together via a lead performance that’s nice enough to invest in and a filmmaker that’s mean enough to make you squirm while you learn.

Dream Scenario is now playing in limited theaters. You can watch the trailer here.

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Images courtesy of A24. Read more articles by Jon Winkler here.