Once Kaiser Soze, and now (actually recently) Franjo Tuđman. Thus, in a dozen words, a kind of arc of the return of disgraced-cancelled Oscar winner Kevin Spacey could be presented - from an Oscar-winning creation to a formal episodic role in To the culprits on duty, the (only) masterpiece of director Bryan Singer (also recently overwritten in Hollywood, but that's a completely different and different story), all the way up to a role in the most recent cinema-horror of Jakov Sedlar, director entrepreneur and provocateur from our neighborhood. And in the meantime, there were dozens of other, again excellent roles, another Oscar (for American beauty), and directing at the widely famous Old Vic Theater in London. And the most significant thing in Kevin Spacey's recent resume is the official notification that he was acquitted of sexual harassment charges (and resto), which was the reason for Hollywood canceling him (i.e. canceling). As things currently stand, Spacey is crunching some kind of acting arrangements on the periphery of the B production league and he will never regain the positions he held there until just a few summers ago. He does not act in the film that is the subject of this presentation (which does not mean that he was not a member of the team for that, and that honor went to Nicolas Cage, an actor of a completely different energy and expressiveness), but what unites them not only in one paragraph of this presentation is the decision of the young Scandinavian author Christopher Borgli to make the focal motif of his debut on the soil of Hollywood, and it is precisely about A dream scenario, took and set the phenomenon of the aforementioned culture of cancellation. At first, Borgli's intention in this regard is not crystal clear, but sometime after the first half hour of this extremely bizarre film, it becomes evident that the almost Charlie Kaufman plot served to make a point that primarily concerns the scourge of that final cancellation, often with an address in the immediate neighborhood orchestrated moral panics.
A dream scenario, therefore, for the foundation of the narrative, it has a hook that could be found in the works of Charlie Kaufman or even Woody Allen (about him as an influence in the case of this film, a little later, a paragraph or two down in this same presentation) - a university professor, biologist, extremely with the generic name Paul Matthews suddenly becomes an extremely ephemeral episodic/extra in the dreams of not only people (colleagues, relatives, acquaintances, students...) that he knows, and this bizarreness quickly takes on clear outlines pandemic in the national framework, after which he becomes an instant star and the target of those who want to cash in on the latest social craze and frenzy. On top of all that, Matthews himself would grab what he could grab at the given moment and circumstances - beyond his academic swagger, he is really an insignificant civilian, an imperceptible speck, a tiny screw and not much more than that. This can also bring to mind the illustrative phrase used by the title character of the novel Jakob von Gunten Roberta Walzer describes himself as "one fine, beautiful, round zero". The trouble is that Matthews fundamentally does not come to terms with such a status in almost all spheres of his existence among others, which makes him additionally anxious, tense, irritable, irritating, therefore, not overly charming in the eyes of the environment, which, after all, still has to and wants to primarily deals with himself. This is where we find the first reason to complain about the leading actor in the film's authorial team (Borgli is also the only screenwriter of this otherwise very good film) - in that part, namely, Cage, definitely in good acting form after decades of wandering and voluntary self-exhaustion in even several dozen extremely questionable films that are simply not even close to his gift, he acts in the register and manner of the aforementioned Woody Allen, including that rhythm of speech, which leads to confusion for to the question of the intention behind that particular move, all the more so because Allen is deeply mired in the tangible foundations for his unfortunate current status in Hollywood (he recently shot his latest film in France, which will soon reach us).
This is where we reach the second act of this undeniably entertaining and imaginative story - Matthews still haunts the dreams of many, even beyond America, but in those dreams, like a less picky Freddy Krueger for the new age, he becomes increasingly violent, aggressive, destructive... which leads him to general hatred, and that slippery and fungal terrain on which the rejected and denounced have to move, with the fact that he did not contribute anything real to his rise nor the latter's sudden fall from favor with yesterday's "fans" and devotees. Already at the "doors" of the second act, it becomes obvious that in the opening part, Borgli thoroughly traced the story so that this biting and effective satire would primarily target that (para)culture of cancellation. Without further ado, his point is clear and effective, it is a phenomenon that makes sense and gives reason to think about it in more detail, and Borglii has nothing to say about it, all the more so because Cage not only instinctively follows those large and palpable transitions from one meaning segment and layer into another, at the same time finely garnishing the narrative with successful comic situations that are by no means an end in themselves. However, in that same place, the pain that Borgli read in his previous film from just a few years ago (Syk Pike or Sick Of Myself, as the English title reads), his second feature film in his native Norway; it seems that this author (for now) does not know where and how to stop.
That's in A dream scenario takes place at the moment when the story has already reached its natural conclusion (within a truly pleasant and economical total duration of about a hundred minutes without a rush hour); at that moment, the screenwriter-director unnecessarily introduces the motif of the fashion app and the accompanying concrete device that allows brands and influencers to advertise in the dreams of, of course, insignificant civilians like Cage Matthews himself was at the beginning of the film - naive, restrained, constrained by social conventions .
There, and it is especially debatable that it happens in the very part where the proverbial thread should (in)decorate the work, it is there that the thematic-motive-ideological destruction occurs almost in the narrative "twelve", which consequently in a certain, but, fortunately, it does not blunt the blade to a great extent until that stage of the expertly and gradually sharpened blade of Borgli's satire with an indisputable reason. A dream scenario, just like and Sick Of Myself with the same load in the same act, stops a few steps from the well-deserved rating of an excellent film, but that is not a reason for sadness and bitter tears - Borgli proved to be adept at working in the Hollywood guild system, studio A24 is a fan of his expression of independent films that manage to throw and delivered another satisfying title to mainstream audiences, Cage, after the films Pig, The unbearable weight of dazzling talent i Butcher's Crossing, registered another movie more or less worthy of attention and praise... and the so-called cancellation culture (cancel culture, so there is no confusion) she received a more popular film that would problematize her and provoke those who pray persistently in such and such a church.
