Robbie casts spell in ‘Dreamland’
Dreamland Rated: R. Running time: 101 minutes. In select theaters and available on most major streaming services. of 4
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“Dreamland” needed a movie star, and it gets one in Margot Robbie.
The film takes place in 1934, during the Dust Bowl, in a small rural town that would be bleak even in the best of times. On Sunday, the entire town goes to church, not necessarily because they’re all religious, but because it’s the only show in town. And the church is practically the only building in town. Welcome to No Place, surrounded by nowhere.
Finn Cole (“Peaky Blinders”) plays Eugene, a teenager who dreams of something more. In an environment that might kill anyone’s spirit, he’s got some romantic ideas about what life could be. Then, miraculously, romance and adventure come to him when he walks into the barn and finds Allison Wells, played by Robbie, hiding there.
Allison, however, is a woman wanted throughout the state for bank robbery and murder. She’s injured, desperate and dangerous, and suddenly he has a choice: He can turn her in and, in the process, turn his back on his destiny; or he can play the hand that fate has dealt
him.
This is where having a movie star becomes essential. In the glare and glow of Robbie’s star wattage, the sensible thing is hardly an option. Everyone young Eugene knows is drab, depressed and limited, while Allison is something off the pages of a pulp magazine — and she needs
him. Of course, he has to help her!
Robbie turned 30 years old this summer, which means that every time we’ve seen her onscreen, she has been in her 20s. Unlike many stars of our era, male and female, she has never been a juvenile or an ingenue, but rather a full-fledged adult from her first moments of stardom.
She brings this screen maturity to her performance as Allison, so that we understand, without the script having to state it, the miles on this young woman, the spiritual toll. Chronologically, Allison might be 26 and Eugene might be 16, but in practical terms, she’s about 50, and he’s about 5 — and no match at all.
The story is told from the standpoint of Eugene’s little sister, who narrates the story as an adult, presumably imagining the many scenes she wasn’t present for. The narration works just fine, at least until the movie’s last 30 seconds. But let’s not talk about the ending. Suffice it to say that it’s unusual for a good movie to screw up its last 30 seconds, but “Dreamland” manages it. Fortunately, it’s not enough to damage the entire experience.
The important thing is that “Dreamland” accomplishes its main intention, which is to make us invest in this strange love story. To the outside world, Allison is a bad person who needs to be eliminated. But from inside the movie’s illusion — an illusion that we, as viewers, partake of — Allison and Eugene are the only people who are alive, and everyone else is the walking dead.
In fact, it begins to seem that the reason that civil society is so intent on killing Allison is that she is alive and therefore a threat. It’s like her existence proves their lack of existence. This isn’t really true, but this is how we end up feeling, and it’s how the characters feel.
Once director Miles Joris-Peyrafitte gets us to that place, he can do anything with us, because we are with Allison and Eugene. We’re not watching them from a distance, but experiencing the story through their eyes. At that point, a quiet scene can be powerful, and a love scene is as important as something happening to