Dream Scenario — Nicholas Cage & the art of counterpoint

As the film begins the title displays in light blue letters, Dream Scenario, flickering in blackness as the opening shot fades in with quick bursts of images as a simulation of a dream.

There is a snapshot of a house. Then the setting of a pool and a patio table made of glass. A tall oak tree, whose red leaves have fallen, cover the concrete around the swimming pool before the blackness of the opening credits returns. Then the image flickers back, now with a girl and a man around the pool, fading in as if we have officially fallen asleep and entered the scene for good.

Thus the film has begun. It is a fall afternoon. A teenage girl, whose back is to us, is sitting crosslegged on a chair before the glass table. She appears bored and peers down at her nails. Beside the pool stands her dad played by Nicholas Cage. The dad is raking leaves beside the pool. He is bespectacled and wearing a sweater over a collard shirt. He continues raking silently. He is not looking at anyone and minding his own business.

Suddenly a large object falls from the sky and lands on the glass table, shattering it before the daughter. She jumps out of her chair and notices a set of keys with a frog keychain on the concrete. She looks at her dad, waiting for his reaction, but finds him glancing over with hardly any interest. After he pauses, he continues cleaning the leaves as if nothing had happened.

Next, leather loafers fall into the swimming pool. Then a huge object falls in the water after it.

“Dad, dad!” The dad looks over at her, calmly holding the rake. “It’s okay, sweetie.” The leaves on the ground begin to float into the air and the girl begins to float, crying for help. The whole while, Nicholas Cage watches his daughter float into the sky completely uninterested.

In the next scene, we hear the narration of the daughter. She is describing this very dream, depicting it to her mom and dad as they are eating breakfast.

Her father, wearing the same studious attire, is preparing to leave for his lecture at the university. He is a professor and bewildered by the dream his daughter just described.

“Why didn’t I do anything?” he said. “I don’t know.” “It’s like the third time now. Why am I always just standing there?” The mother looks over at him. “Don’t make her feel guilty about her dreams, Paul.” The father stops before his daughter, standing over her. “You don’t see me that way, right? That’s not how you think I’d react in real life.” “If I was floating?” “You remember that time you almost drowned? How fast I reacted.” “She was four,” the mom says. “I remember you telling me about it,” the girl says.

In the next scene, we are in the lecture hall of Paul (played by Nicholas Cage). He is speaking about Zebras and why they look the way they do. He is asking the class as to how the black and white stripes could be a benefit for the animals.

The classroom is half-asleep. No one raises their hands. Paul continues explaining, “From what we know, the camouflage isn’t effective in blending in with the environment. Rather, it’s about blending in with the herd. You see, predators need to identify their prey. They can’t just attack the whole group. So if you stick your head out, you make yourself a target. Does that make sense?”

In the next scene, Paul the professor goes to a restaurant to meet a former academic researcher. At once, the hostess sees Paul and is sure she knows him or has seen him from somewhere. And right at once, the story has taken off. It is entering into that open space where conflict and drama can be found — where that inciting incident is unraveling before us and we are beginning to enter into a new world of cinema; a world where millions of people, from various cities and states and countries, start to have reoccurring dreams about this lackluster professor named Paul.

About Paul — a simple professor, family man — but why?

Similar to Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind or other creative and heady films written by Charlie Kaufman, in the Norwegian writer and director Kristoffer Borgli’s film we have a way of looking at dreams and virality in a completely new way. We are presented with some pretty big psychological questions such as the meaning of dreams and why we dream about certain people? This extends itself into how our limited knowledge of a person or celebrity takes on a life of its own from our own associations and even imaginations of the people we know so little about.

Almost at once from minute 10 of the film, Paul goes viral in the strangest of ways. It is not the kind of viral that is from blowing up on TikTok or Instagram. That’s to say, it is no effect of the proliferation of video sharing and how remarkable bits of news get spread like wildfire across the web. Instead, this virality towards Paul moves across the population when one falls asleep only to have dreams about a man they do not know.

We see horrific dreams of someone being stabbed or being trapped by a family of alligators, only to see the same bystander who never helps, who wears glasses and never takes the slightest action, never committing to any decision to help. And quickly, as we learn more about the ‘real’ Paul character through the opening of the film, we come to realize that such noncommittal reactions of Paul in people’s dream life are not so far from the that of the waking life.

But what makes this this such an interesting film for Nicholas Cage to star in and what does it mean to practice in the art of counterpoint? Below I have provided some food for thought that applies to this film and the overall idea of a character having two very different sides, which convert powerfully into inner-turmoil and conflict:

1. Acting by way of contrasts.

It is not too shocking to note that an actor can reveal much more emotion when starting a scene in one emotional state only to end the scene in a very different state. In addition to good acting, this is the easiest way to emphasize a visceral reaction to something.

2. Acting by way of juxtaposition

Halfway through the film, the dreams about Paul change dramatically. Through both the public’s reaction to Pauls different type of virality — in turn Nicholas Cage gets a very different stimuli to act against, producing even more heightened drama.

3. Acting by way of breaking expectation.

In story telling we learn that a character is one way. Generally, the character changes through the course of the film. But when people’s view of the character changes dramatically, what does this do to the character himself and the newfound opportunities to play off of this? When reading a script, from the overall story arch an actor can get many clues and hints on how to play a scene, rather than just playing it for the scene itself.

In short, Dream Scenario is a kind of strange dream for any actor including Nicholas Cage to act in. The possibilities are almost endless in how to counter so many of the moving parts that develop in the forward movement of such a cerebral film. Clearly, it helps to cast the brilliant Nicholas Cage to play an oddball role. His over-the-top reactions for which he breaks down continue to be nothing but iconic. But what’s more, as Jim Carrey was handed the script of a lifetime when playing Joel Barish in Charlie Kaufman’s brilliantly written film, Nicholas Cage got an almost equally big gift to play Paul in one of the freshest stories I have seen in a while by the Norwegian screenwriter Kristoffer Borgli.

This is because good story ideas are like the engine in what makes a film work or not work. And when you put a good engine under the hood, put up against good actors and a reasonably well written script to boot, a film has almost nothing to do but succeed as this film most certainly did.

-Dream Scenario is now streaming on HBOMAX.