Cage gets antsy
You never know what you’re going to get with a Nicolas Cage movie. Since a well-publicised clash with the taxman, the Oscar winner has been either shouting manically in a cheesy action movie or playing it cool in the occasional passion project.
Dream Scenario reminds us how good he is at deadpan comedy. Here, his job is to raise wry smiles and ground director Kristoffer Borgli’s outlandish plot in reality.
He plays Paul Matthews, a balding, largely invisible university lecturer. He’s an ordinary man who finds himself living in very extraordinary circumstances. Over a very funny opening 45 minutes, Paul becomes America’s latest talentless celebrity.
This isn’t down to a Youtube channel or a reality show. For no reason, Paul keeps appearing in people’s dreams – first in his family’s, then in the dreams of his students, and then the dreams of strangers all over America.
He makes his debut in nightmares involving him being a passive and utterly useless observer to disasters involving devastating earthquakes or rampaging alligators.
Paul would like to be doing something a bit more heroic but decides to lean into his newfound infamy by signing up with a
PR company. Michael Cera’s publicist has lined up a deal with a fizzy drink company (if he appears on the internet holding a can of pop, maybe people will wake up wanting a Sprite?).
But all Paul wants is a publishing deal for a book on ants that he hasn’t even started writing.
Then people start dreaming of being attacked by a psycho Paul. The scientist is deemed a menace, his wife can’t even look at him, and he’s sacked from his job.
As the film turns into a parable about online fame and cancel culture, the laughs begin to dry up.
Still, this wildly original and genuinely nightmarish comedy really stays with you.
‘‘ A wildly original and genuinely nightmarish comedy that stays with you