Written and directed by Michel Franco, romance blossoms between a wealthy socialite and a Mexican ballet dancer, intertwining their contrasting lives and cultures. Starring: Jessica Chastain, Isaac Hernández, Rupert Friend, Marshall Bell, Eligio Meléndez and Mercedes Hernández.
Coming off the back of such a powerfully vulnerable and shattering film as Memory, this is a surprising and disappointing turn from Michel Franco. Instead striking a more similar note to 2020’s New Order, creating something cold and empty with an overt desire for scandal. The tone is tepid, and its attempt at eroticism is lacklustre with such little chemistry or tension. There is however a decent tension in the atmosphere but it’s nowhere near the quality of his previous film.
Part of the problem becomes clearer as Dreams progresses, which is that it doesn’t know what it wants to be. Eventually taking some wild turns into very dark territory, that it doesn’t have the foundation or tone to deliver. There’s a twisted nature to this story and it’s dealt with, with such a nonchalance that it doesn’t work. Not to mention that Franco does make some questionable choices, even for a film with intentionally murky ethics, again harking back to his choices with New Order.
The performances from Jessica Chastain and Isaac Hernández are solid but they’re entirely undermined by Dreams’ lack of strong identity. They’re left unmoored by the bizarre progression and erratic nature of the story. Although Chastain should certainly get plenty of points for capturing that classic elitist manipulation to the highest degree. They both do well to create that clash of different worlds, perspectives and priorities but ultimately, it feels simplistic, even though it’s no fault of theirs.
Dreams feels as though it was unaware of how twisted and dark this story was going to become and forgot to adjust accordingly or subtly build that into the atmosphere. It feels like a waste of talent, particularly that of Jessica Chastain and Isaac Hernández, you can feel from these performances that they could have delivered something really strong, given better material. It’s simply too casual to work, despite its relevancy with immigration and wealth. It feels like it was trying to take an easy route to make a scandalous film about relevant topics and it’s a fairly baffling experience.
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