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Rating: Very few contemporary films have been able, with equal effectiveness and simplicity, to stage the nervous breakdown of contemporary American society.
Dream Scenario is indeed a very sharp and ruthless metaphor/analysis of America, its psychoses and addictions, its morbid and unresolved problem with images and media, and especially with the collective subconscious of a complex, paranoid, mean-spirited nation. As one would say in Donnie Darko, another great satire of the American dream: "slave to its own fears."
Dream Scenario shows the Jungian dualism of America. The desire to blend into the herd to not be an easy target by the average man, which is however frustrated by the thrill of fame, and the dream of being, at least for a while, something special.
The dreams of Americans are a jumble of phobias, sexual repression, and insecurities that require a medium on which to project them, in a crescendo of hate and frustration. In the end, the only safe haven remains capitalism, the true refuge, when everything is automatically normalized by technology and consumption.
The psyche of the average American is, thus, a vicious circle that feeds itself infinitely.
Nicolas Cage is once again exceptional, beyond the sad prejudices that many, unfortunately, still hold against him. Here he is seen in a character very similar to the one he brought to the stage in the wonderful and never sufficiently cited The Weather Man by Verbinski. In the end, America's general malaise is always the same, it was even before, but after the watershed of 9/11, the neuroses have never healed. Tics and problems never resolved.
Dream Scenario somewhat recalls Gondry and Kaufman, and one feels the presence of Ari Aster among the producers. And it is yet another gem from A24.
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