‘Dream Scenario’ Review: Dream Boat
metroweekly.comIt’s not a career revival until you star in an A24 film helmed by a buzzy director decades your junior. That seems to be the new rule in Hollywood these days.Just ask Adam Sandler, who revitalized his career with a sweaty, unforgettable performance in the Safdie brothers’ Uncut Gems, or Nathan Lane, who’s become a self-described “poster boy for A24” following recent roles in Dicks: The Musical and Beau Is Afraid.Enter Nicolas Cage, whose once-flailing career has enjoyed a rebirth ever since his muted, mournful performance in the 2021 indie sleeper hit Pig.
Cage’s subsequent return to major studio roles — playing a fictionalized version of himself in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent in 2022, and Count Dracula in 2023’s Renfield — proved less satisfying, with both films undermining his comedic work with gimmicky gags and deficient direction.Joining forces with the buzzy film studio, the eccentric icon now gets his A24 moment — happily, in a film worthy of his comedic abilities.
That’s to the credit of Norwegian filmmaker Kristoffer Borgli, who rose to prominence last year with the art-world satire Sick of Myself.The film received substantial acclaim, enabling Borgli to assemble an enviable talent pool for his American debut, the Ari Aster-produced Dream Scenario, which Borgli wrote and directed.
It’s a lightly trippy brain-bender of a film, buoyed by Cage’s best comic performance in many years.A schlubby, balding Cage stars as Paul Matthews, an evolutionary biologist whose career isn’t quite what he had hoped.
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