American humorist Charles Godfrey Leland was not quite a folklorist; he tended to embroider the stories he collected with touches of his own. He groomed myths and legends of the occult into often humorous tales of the supernatural and occult. He was no mere reporter.
But what he might be known for best today is a phrase he coined in his 1896 collection of tales "Legends of Florence." In one of the stories, he has an immortal character named Flaxius describing some of the follies of mortals. In a passage that might seem applicable to anyone who has wondered about internet influencers and/or reality TV personalities, Flaxius reflects on the sort of person whose "whole life and highest aim is really not to win gold for real pleasure, or even for avarice or aught solid, but merely to live in its glitter and sheen -- to ... jingle jewels, in a kind of fade ostentation, as doth a professional beauty or an actress famous for being famous."
And so the concept of unearned celebrity extends back to at least the 19th century.
Norwegian director-writer-editor Kristoffer Borgli's "Dream Scenario" has something of the flavor of one of Leland's custom-shopped legends -- the idea of a figure who invades the dreams of others has some precedents in the ancient world (Night Hags and Dream Eaters), and as Borgli alludes to in the film, horror icon Freddy Krueger.
But this is a thoroughly modern horror comedy; the monster of the piece is actually the victim, a gregarious if somewhat socially awkward professor of biology with a special interest in the social and intellectual lives of ants. (He's planning to someday write a book about his research into what he calls "antelligence.")
Paul Matthews, as portrayed by Nicolas Cage (a fine actor who the world might finally be ready for), is a highly credible creation; an enthusiastic teacher frustrated by his students' inability to delight in the wonderful strangeness of the natural world. He is sometimes distracted, a bit nebbish-y, but hardly unloved. He might exasperate his wife Janet (wonderfully subtle Julianne Nicholson) but she genuinely loves him. And his middle-school daughters tolerate him.
Paul is a little too eager for the recognition he pretends means nothing to him. He gets along with his college dean, but covets an invitation to one of his colleague's dinner party salons where interesting people are brought together. It would be harsh to say Paul is a mediocrity -- he's a tenured professor at what looks to be a well-endowed private college in Massachusetts. But he's not the most interesting man in the world.
Not yet.
A strange -- magical -- thing happens: Paul begins appearing in other people's dreams. In his daughters' dreams. In his students' dreams. When an old girlfriend -- a journalist -- writes about Paul appearing in her dreams, and links to his Facebook profile, it becomes apparent he's appearing in strangers' dreams all over the world.
He's a benign presence at first, or maybe an irritatingly passive presence. He's not the point of the dreams; he's just there. Not helping. Strolling by in the background.
TV news reporters interview Paul, who can't explain it, but revels in the attention, even though he and Janet are "not the sort of people who like attention." He likes hearing the stories, though he's not thrilled that he's such a docile character. He wishes his dream avatar would do something.
Paul is savvy enough to understand that in 21st-century America, celebrity generates opportunity. This is his chance to secure a book deal. Now that everyone knows his name, image and likeness, he should be able to leverage his fame to advance his career. The problem is Paul is famous for being famous -- a kind of natural viral phenomenon. Nobody wants to read what he has to say about ants. His celebrity is his only asset in this space.
Which leads to certain opportunities -- though not necessarily to being taken seriously.
There are a lot of ideas packed into "Dream Scenario," maybe too many for one movie. Borgli has clearly thought about empty-calorie notoriety, and how that might wear on a certain kind of thoughtful person -- the kind who would never think to pursue that sort of fame -- and how even the most sober-minded of us can be intoxicated by flattering attention. He has also thought a lot about so-called "cancel culture" and the spinelessness of bureaucrats and administrators in the face of angry mobs with hurt feelings.
He also embeds a critique of elevated horror movies in the film and makes a few piquant observations about the duties and obligations of married life. Nicholas Braun (beta male Cousin Greg in HBO's "Succession") turns up in a third act sci-fi twist that could have been the basis for another movie.
And there may be a yet another movie about academic jealousy and the embezzlement of intellectual capital stuck in the middle of the film.
Borgli drops in a sunshine-pumping Michael Cera for a turn as an ever-positive marketer who can work with whatever kind of notoriety Paul offers. And there is a character (Dylan Gelula) who might be an analog for those people who write letters to imprisoned serial killers, who convinces the weak (Paul mightn't be mediocre, but he certainly is weak) to re-enact a sex dream with predictably cringe-y results.
While some of these threads are incompletely developed and others dropped entirely, "Dream Scenario" never collapses in formless entropy -- as last year's "Everything Everywhere All at Once" did for me -- thanks in large part to Cage's open-hearted embrace of his character, who feels as emotionally true as any part Cage has taken on since his Oscar-winning role as a suicidal alcoholic in 1995's "Leaving Las Vegas."
That Cage is an eccentric man and an actor of large appetites is well known; my uninformed opinion is that he likes to work and tends to put himself in situations where he needs money, so he takes on roles that might seem beneath his talent and uses these films as revenue-generating laboratories where he can test his theories about "mega-acting."
He's almost always entertaining, and when he's good -- as in "Leaving Las Vegas," "Adaptation," "Matchstick Men," "Joe," "Pig" -- he deserves to be considered among our finest actors. He has come a long way in the past 40 years, since Sean Penn's nasty-but-not-inaccurate remark about him being more entertainer than actor.
Adam Sandler was originally cast as Paul; he would have been similarly effective though in a different way from Cage -- there's an undercurrent of unpredictability that attaches to the actor. In a way, Sandler might have been even more believable as the nebbish. While he might have been funnier, I wonder if his Paul would have had the same quality of pathos.
While Paul is telling (mostly) the truth when he pleads with the world that he has done nothing wrong, he's still whining. He still longs for the attention and approbation of strangers, for some Flaxius-eseque immortality.
Email: pmartin@adgnewsroom.com
- 88 Cast: Nicolas Cage, Julianne Nicholson, Michael Cera, Tim Meadows, Dylan Gelula, Dylan Baker
- Director: Kristoffer Borgli
- Rated: R, for language, violence and some sexual content
- Running time: 1 hour, 42 minutes