Rating: NR | Runtime: 95 minutes
Release Date: September 11th, 2025 (Mexico) / February 27th, 2026 (USA)
Studio: Greenwich Entertainment
Director(s): Michel Franco
Writer(s): Michel Franco

You need to understand why I did it.

Writer/director Michel Franco has never shied from controversy and Dreams is no exception with its look at the complicated romance between a wealthy white American socialite (Jessica Chastain’s Jennifer McCarthy) and her Mexican dancer lover (Isaac Hernández’s Fernando Rodríguez). Because what initially appears like two people madly in love who are willing to risk their lives to be together quickly reveals a much darker truth about power and exploitation.

The film does a wonderful job doing so too by ensuring the audience knows which is predator and which is prey. Fernando crosses the border illegally to be with Jennifer. He wants nothing more than to be with her and make good on her promise that she wants the same. She doesn’t, though. Not tangibly. Yes, she will use her money to protect him, but only if he agrees to stay in a gilded cage away from the world in which she operates.

So, Fernando justifiable leaves. If Jennifer won’t marry him or even introduce him to her family (Marshall Bell as her entrepreneur father Michael and Rupert Friend as her foundation partner brother Jake), why is he wasting his time? He doesn’t want to be a trophy hidden away. He aspires to put his talent to work and make a name for himself on the ballet scene. He never wanted her money. He only wanted her—the one thing she will not truly give.

It’s a great dramatic thrust through which Franco shows us how Fernando is right insofar as having the goods to excel on-stage. He finds champions and allies in that sphere as well as in California’s Mexican community to prove to himself that he doesn’t need Jennifer’s charity. And she, in turn, realizes just how much she wants and misses him. She reaches a point where the fear of alienating her family and social circle might be worth her happiness with him after all.

But that’s when Franco stirs the pot. That’s when Dreams decides to shift things in a way where the power dynamic that’s so obviously in Jennifer’s favor due to economics and politics can swing towards Fernando instead. Is it an interesting wrinkle that leads to some tense moments wherein she is suddenly the one put in danger? Yes. Does it also wield violence in a way that intentionally fans some pretty damaging flames used to dehumanize Mexicans? Sadly, also yes.

I have a hard time seeing the angle in doing this beyond a lazy means to turn those tables. There are many different ways in which this script could do so without resorting to what occurs and I don’t buy the argument that making Jennifer the worst version of her stereotype gives you permission to make Fernando the worst version of his. Unless the idea was to humanize him in such a way that our empathy asks us to excuse his heinous actions.

It doesn’t. Two wrongs do not make a right and Fernando has already shown a willingness to leave Jennifer behind. Yes, she’s also shown that he can’t escape her reach if she doesn’t want him to, but that fact should do more to vilify her hypocrisy and emotional violence than give him an excuse to be cruel too. The climax therefore doesn’t give me pause to think. It reveals a reality that humans are a depraved species incapable of grace.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for a nihilist bent like this. I absolutely loved Franco’s New Order. The way he draws this one up, though, feels in-your-face in a much more manipulative way. He’s lulling us to sleep by presenting a drama with obvious good guys and bad guys before pulling the rug and saying “no, we’re all bad actually.” In so doing, he alters the lesson. He wipes away the nuanced look at American entitlement by letting his victim succumb to his oppressor’s rage.

I get it. Jennifer deserves retribution. But not like this. The imprisonment metaphor is blunt enough. There’s a large enough undercurrent of control in it to make the point without muddying the waters and our sympathies by taking it across an objective point of no return (although the current partisan landscape concerning the Epstein files has exposed how that line might not be as solidly drawn as we’d hope). It serves Franco’s divisive purpose, though.

And it’s executed to perfection towards those means. Chastain and Hernández are both fantastic in their micro-aggressive performances as the frame of their romance shifts due to their diverging desires. She wants to own him. He wants her to champion his humanity to the world. So, he deflates when she refuses and she conspires to re-establish her equilibrium whenever he dares rebel against it. Everything Franco needs is there. He took a lot more.

The finale is effective despite its blunt force trauma, but it rings hollow in hindsight due to how it renders the successful foundation propping it up moot. Is there still enough to watch anyway? I think so. I just also believe that the criticisms about New Order that I disagreed with then are undeniable here. So, good on Franco for pushing boundaries and the cast and crew for their excellent work. I only wish the result sparked an epiphany rather than a concussion.

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Jennifer (Jessica Chastain) and Fernando (Isaac Hernández) are sharing a romantic moment in their house in DREAMS. @Teorema 2025.