'Dream Scenario' Review: The Birth of a New Nick Cage Classic [TIFF 2023]
nick cage has perhaps met his match in this mind-bending tale.
The legend of Nicolas Cage has been ever so prevalent in the realm of popular culture for the better part of the last two decades now. As an actor, he has built himself an image that is larger than life, an image that comes out of and stretches beyond our screens. The idea of Nick Cage and the image that he brings along with himself is often more than the movies, and in recent years, Cage has been pumping out a countless number of low budget under the radar films that fly on his name alone. Most of these films are rarely seen by audiences outside of those who’d consider themselves Cage crazed, and the critics usually could care less for his usual output. In the mix of these countless films starring the legendary actor there are the odd few that dare to stand out. The odd few that seem to be something more. More than just a Nick Cage direct to video release or hidden streaming dump, more than just another movie starring Nick Cage. These odd few films are lightning in a sea of lightning filled bottles in an exponentially larger sea of bottles that is the Nicolas Cage filmography. The latest from the superstar is one of those odd few, and I am proud to report that at the 2023 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival a new Nick Cage classic has been born.
Dream Scenario opens with a dream sequence of a man and his daughter outside in the backyard. Things start to fall from the sky, smashing a table and crashing into the pool deck. Eventually, the daughter begins to get sucked up towards the sky, floating up and up and up. She screams for her father to help but he just stands and stares, continuing on with his yard keeping duties. We awake from this dream to the daughter explaining the dream to her father. He is of course baffled at the dream and emphasizes that he wouldn’t act like that, and the family breakfast carries on.
That father, our lead, Paul Matthews (Nicolas Cage) is a tenured professor at a nearby university. His students are often disinterested with his lecturing, and he can be seen as almost repellent towards other scholars that he once shared spaces with as a student many years ago. It is safe to say that Paul is kind of a loner outside of his family, but not for the lack of trying. His life turns upside down when vast numbers of people begin to see him in their dreams. It becomes a phenomenon and Paul becomes sort of an overnight sensation, attracting all sorts of attention, both wanted and unwanted. The film also features Julianne Nicholson, who plays his wife, Janet, as well as Michael Cera, Tim Meadows, Nicholas Braun, and others.
Norwegian director Kristoffer Borgli helms this A24 production as his first English language feature film following his debut feature Sick of Myself (2022), and a slew of other short films that he has directed over the past decade. In Dream Scenario, Borgli, who is also the sole writer on the project, uses a rather gripping premise to explore the idea of how being the centre of attention, even in a fifteen minutes of fame style situation, impacts not only the individual in the middle of it all but those around him. The viewer watches as Paul’s mundane life absolutely balloons and explodes into a million pieces that he must grapple with and sift through.
The strength of the film is certainly in its concept, as it leads us in many different directions and allows for a vast amount of possible interactions that Paul often finds himself running into. The other strength is of course in the ability of its lead (Cage) to absolutely absorb the material and hit an absolute home run with it. Cage’s staple over the top acting style is sometimes present here, but he holds it here for just the right moments, and he situates himself into the character so well. In a recent interview published by Global News, Cage references how being an “internet meme” helped him prepare for this role. In a way his casting could be described as rather meta, and the film utilizes humour and assumed societal reactions to this phenomenon as a way to advance the plot and tap into a sort of meta contextual humour that the viewer can relate to real life.
When a film tackles the concept of everything that can go wrong will go wrong it often makes for a rather anxious experience. Think back to the 2019 smash hit film Uncut Gems, or even back to Scorsese’s 1985 dark comedy After Hours, there is something so fascinating about watching characters go down a rabbit hole of distress, only to brush off the very hand that tries to reach down and pull them out. The film maintains an exhilarating sense of peril and spontaneity that Paul must grapple with, and Cage’s approach to the character makes it all work so well.
The film uses its premise and concept to delve into societal structures that are in place all around us today. The usage is effective and it allows the film to be more than just pure entertainment, but it gives you something to ponder on as well. While this isn’t quite comparable to an episode of Black Mirror, it certainly has similarities in some of its depictions of modern society, while still being rooted in a very contemporary atmosphere.
Kristoffer Borgli’s Dream Scenario is without a doubt one of the best films at the 2023 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival. The script and direction are perfectly woven together to find just the right amount of Cage it can handle, and a fully locked in Nick Cage absolutely brings this film together and makes it an incredible experience. Packed with an abundance of humour, a gripping premise and clever twists and turns, as well as great performances all around, Dream Scenario is a major win. Dream Scenario enters the upper echelon of the Cage filmography alongside the likes of Face/Off, Mandy, Adaptation, and other classic Cage performances and films, for it truly is the birth of a new Nick Cage classic.