DREAMLAND (15)
Released: December 11 (UK, selected cinemas)
Doomed lovers go on the run in Dreamland, a familiar tale of lust in the dust that owes some of its stylistic choices and hopeful romanticism to Terrence Malick’s Oscar-winning 1978 drama Days Of Heaven.
The sun beats down relentlessly on director Miles Joris-Peyrafitte’s second picture, reducing the American dreams of Depression-era settlers to withered husks as drought and a series of devastating storms parch the farmlands of Texas.
Seeds of hope seldom take root and any brave souls that remain place their faith in the words of the Lord and generous glugs of a liquor bottle. Screenwriter Nicolaas Zwart uses the faded pastoral idyll as a weather-beaten backdrop to a meeting between a teenage boy, who has been starved of paternal affection, and a fugitive female bank robber with a rap sheet akin to Bonnie and Clyde.
Embers of desire ignite in the picture’s languid second half, which is dominated by a prolonged shower sex scene that operates effectively as a demonstration video on water wastage.
A female narrator (Lola Kirke) recounts the story of Eugene Baker (Cole), who grows up in the sun-scorched dustbowl of Texas, with his father John (Hans Christopher) and mother Olivia (Kerry Condon).
The old man leaves when Eugene is five, sending just one postcard from New Mexico after his angry, night-time exodus. Eugene grows into an awkward teenager, who escapes the unforgiving weather conditions by immersing himself in the detective magazines he steals from a local store with best friend Joe (Stephen Dinh).
During one of these sorties into town, the boys learn that bank robber and murderer Allison Wells (Margot Robbie) is at large in the state. There is a 10,000 dollar reward for her capture. Soon after, Eugene stumbles upon the injured fugitive in the family’s barn. Allison paints herself as a victim of bad circumstances and offers the boy 20,000 dollars to steal a vehicle to get her to Mexico.
Dreamland lights up every time Robbie limps on screen.