Kristoffer Borgli and Nicolas Cages Dream Scenario is a dark comic fable for our cancel culture times.
This article contains minorDream Scenariospoilers.
The most remarkable thing about Professor Paul Matthews is how unremarkable he is.
The latest addition toNicolas Cages oeuvre of oddballs and nuts is, in fact, impressively forgettable.
So what makes him so curiously haunting after youve seenDream Scenario?
Cage himself is obviously a major factor.
Nonetheless, due to seeming magic, his exes begin dreaming about him decades later.
At last everyone is thinking about him!
Instead a scuzzy publicist (Michael Cera) just wants to use his dream powers to sell Sprite.
Did Paul invite or in some way summon the bad juju that is to come?
The answer remains satisfyingly elusive due to Cages choices.
Either way, it is never joy that animates him.
Even when he is with people who care about him, he is ill at ease.
He threw a temper tantrum in that one scene, so is he truly innocent?
It is an enigma inside a mystery.
In the end,Dream Scenariois a Kafkaesque nightmare tailor-made for our social media world.
It is again Cages performance that provides the cartilage and connective tissue between the pictures varied and aloof ideas.
Were left to reach our own verdict on a man who spent a lifetime doing nothing.
It is other peoples projections that define his story and seal his fate.
Cage just makes us complicit in the daydream.
Dream Scenariois in limited release in the U.S. and UK now and opens wide on Wednesday, Nov. 22.
