REVIEW: DREAM SCENARIO. "What Would Sigmund Do?"

We live in the city of dreams

We drive on the highway of fire

Should we awake

And find it gone

Remember this, our favorite town

- David Byrne, "City of Dreams" (1986)

I'll admit I was intrigued about Dream Scenario's premise from the get-go: Mediocre college biology professor - an undistinguished nobody called Paul Matthews (Nicolas Cage) who, thirty years ago, would have held up the second half of the "publish or perish" ultimatum typically given fledgling academics - discovers he's showing up in other people's dreams. Strangers stop him to ask if they know each other. Social media explodes with tweets, texts, and other messages about Paul's nocturnal presence. News stations come calling for interviews. Celebrity beckons.

Hmmm...

What would Sigmund do?

After a refugee from a mental institution wanders into Paul's home and threatens to kill him, Paul hires a PR firm called "thoughts?" to help him navigate his newfound fame. He quickly realizes that the young staff members at thoughts? don't understand him at all. They envision him as the new face of Sprite soda, while Paul is hoping his notoriety will help solicit a publisher for his as yet unwritten book. The potential partnership between Paul and thoughts? seems tenuous at best.

Then something happens. A former graduate school colleague of Paul's (an enterprising woman named Sheila) publishes an article on the very subject Paul was planning to write his book about - using research he's held onto for 20+ years. Despite a total lack of self-awareness toward his own intellectual inertia, Paul explodes in anger, convinced that he's been wronged and that his research has been stolen. No one cares, though, not even his wife or academic colleagues.

There's more. Whether or not it's a consequence of his anger (the movie isn't clear), Paul's dream appearances suddenly turn darker and more brutal. His previously passive, benign, almost reassuring presence in everybody else's dreams becomes threatening and violent. Or so people claim. His students stop coming to class because they insist they're afraid of him. Even something as simple as dining in a restaurant results in other patrons insisting that Paul leave because they are uncomfortable in his presence. His real life begins to deteriorate, and he becomes increasingly alienated from his colleagues, his wife and his children.

Dream Scenario, written and directed by Norwegian filmmaker Kristoffer Borgli, is an excellent, if sometimes discombobulated, critique of contemporary social media: how it manufactures truth, magnifies seemingly inconsequential issues to almost hysterical proportions, and then destroys whatever is an inconvenient impediment to - what else? Making money. Ethics, integrity, and authenticity are irrelevant in a world attached to cell phones, Tik Toc images, and individual experiences. When the Dean at the college where Paul teachers informs him he's putting Paul on an extended leave of absence because his students have complained they "feel" uneasy when he is around (though no evidence to that effect has been substantiated), Paul reacts in anger, saying there is no evidence to support the claims and that today's students are "traumatized" by everything.

While there may be truth in Paul's assessment about twenty-first century students being overly sensitive to stress and life's challenges, no one listens because his observation is inconsistent with popular opinion. Borgli's script astutely follows the digression of Paul's life and career with a keen eye to the unintended consequences of a culture enmeshed in technology, virtual reality and Chatbot GPT. Dream sequences are interwoven with reality, further blurring the line between what is actual and what is imagined, though the clever, savvy moviegoer will be able to detect the cinematic devices (lighting, music, camera angles) Borgli uses to separate the two.

The result is a mostly engaging, often (darkly) funny indictment of the artificiality of intelligence. Paul may be the hapless victim of dream scenarios gone awry, but he's also a bit of a jerk: a clueless pedant with a misplaced sense of entitlement. He has no real friends to speak of. Even his wife (a thoroughly bitchy Julianne Nicholson) mistrusts his every move.

Borgli presents Paul as a stereotypically disconnected professor: he collects data and observes the world without engaging. Even in other people's imaginations, he initially shows up without interacting, usually standing passively in the background. It is only when he becomes angry in real life that his nocturnal persona becomes actively savage and violent. Cage delivers a richly conflicted, nuanced interpretation. As someone with a PhD who has also completed training as a "Trauma Care Ambassador," I can appreciate the challenges faced by today's university faculty who must negotiate the boundaries of academic freedom alongside the need for equity in student success. And then add to that the uncertainties of AI to teaching and learning.

Some critics have asserted that Dream Scenario is a cruel take-down of "cancel culture," though I'd argue there's more to the story than that. Paul is definitely ostracized for exhibiting "unacceptable" behavior, but he also contributes to his own demise by remaining out of touch with the world around him. Nicolas Cage gives a terrific performance here, depicting Paul's imperfections and his victimization with equal aplomb. I doubt he'll make the final five 2023 Best Actor nominees, but his work here certainly ranks among this year's best.

Besides, anyone who can rock an oversized suit like David Byrne's from 1984's Stop Making Sense while "City of Dreams" plays in the background gets extra points from me. But you probably need to see the movie to understand the importance of Borgli's ethereal context.