Rating: R | Runtime: 102 minutes
Release Date: November 10th, 2023 (USA)
Studio: A24
Director(s): Kristoffer Borgli
Writer(s): Kristoffer Borgli

Do you think I could handle the emotional burden of having an affair?

It’s a brilliant concept. Harmless, boring nobody Paul Matthews (Nicolas Cage) starts popping up in random people’s dreams until he becomes the most recognizable face in the world. The dreamers all want a piece of his celebrity. Marketing agencies want to commodify his insane brand reach. He just wants to pivot the notoriety towards his academic career and publish that book he’s never written. And then the dreams become nightmares.

I was a fan of writer/director Kristoffer Borgli’s previous film Sick of Myself and Dream Scenario definitely shares DNA with its themes on fame in the digital age often trending towards warped, flash-in-the-pan phenomena that ultimately finds its volatile shelf-life won’t just cause the benefactor to fade away from public consciousness. It will inevitably ensure that their image is destroyed to a point of no return.

It’s all about that table turn. It’s about hubris. Whereas the lead in Sick of Myself is intentionally bringing this result upon herself, however, Paul is mostly an innocent bystander to his unfortunate plight. Does that change considering he starts to exploit it along with everyone else? Maybe. Maybe not. To me, however, saying it does render the eventual tonal shift an uninteresting evolution at a moment when the film should be capitalizing on the investment its audience has given this wild journey in hopes of a worthwhile payoff.

Cage is great in the role. He does everything he must for the concept to come to life. In my mind, however, the script does him no favors by seemingly getting confused about what it wants to say since it’s saying it about a person who wields zero control. Are we wrong for pitying him then? Does he deserve what happens? To equate it to cancel culture makes it even more perplexing since doing so makes it seem people who should be canceled have been unjustly vilified.

So, maybe I’m missing the joke? I still had fun with the film; it just crashed into a brick wall right when it seemed like it was hitting its stride and preparing to deliver the punchline. There’s some good stuff as far as public consciousness dictating reality rather than reality itself, though. As well showcasing the lengths we’ll go to piggyback on another’s success in ways that use their newfound clout despite previously believing they held no intellectual value.

But it all seems to flitter away in lieu of genre conventions, a sharp (albeit believable) left turn into science fiction, and an ending that wants us to think Paul Matthews was never worthy of happiness. That he lucked his way into what he did have and needed to be punished for daring to dream about more. Or maybe he’s being punished because he refused to actually work for it? I stopped caring.

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Nicolas Cage in DREAM SCENARIO; courtesy of A24.