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This piece was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labour of the actors currently on strike, the film being covered here wouldn’t exist.

A lot can be said about the premise of a film like Dream Scenario just by looking at it from the surface. It’s a movie all about Nicolas Cage simply showing up in our dreams, without any explanation whatsoever, and the absurdity can only go so far enough from there. But it’s also only a fraction with regards to what it is that makes this film so fun all around. It also might be the craziest that some of us would ever want Nicolas Cage to be when he’s at his best, but the beauty of watching Nicolas Cage take on just about any role is knowing he’s having fun, and he wants the audience to have the same experience.

Nicolas Cage stars as Paul Matthews, an unremarkable biology professor whose life plays by the same routine going day in and day out every day. Later, he meets with a friend who tells him that he appeared in her dreams, doing absolutely nothing – although he spontaneously was there. Eventually, more people start walking up to Paul to tell him that he was in their own dreams, which later turns Paul from a boring everyday man into some sort of an instant celebrity, and he starts to realize that something more has been happening. Truth be told, if the man in question was none other than Nicolas Cage, many moviegoers would also like to have that experience of seeing him in their own dreams.

Dream Scenario plays up the absurdity to the umpteenth degree, where the many scenarios that people dream of randomly happen to have Nicolas Cage showing up in them. What happens here is Kristoffer Borgli boasting some of the most creative production design that you’ll see in any film all year round – all owing to the fact that while we’re encompassing dream logic, nothing really makes as much sense. Even moments that feel ordinary end up feeling like there’s something weird going on, but that’s also a testament to how committed everyone behind this film is to its premise. And it’s all the more wonderful for it.

It’s also maybe some of the most committed we’ve seen Nicolas Cage been on the screen in a while. Perhaps we’ve already come to a point where Nicolas Cage’s status as an internet meme has become almost ubiquitous with the variety of the performances that he gives, whether they be good or bad, especially with the recent release of a film like The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. But where that movie seems to only see Cage’s presence as meme fodder, there’s also a great deal of humanity to what Borgli brings out of him in Dream Scenario. We’re seeing him as an ordinary man trying to come to terms with the unexpected celebrity status as it harbours positive and negative effects moving forth.

Where I think that Dream Scenario does falter though, owes itself to the nature of the film’s social commentary. Of course, something that’s as absurd as this can only be described as a film all about the nature of the celebrity status as it’s thrust on the most unexpected person imaginable, but perhaps the repercussions of cancel culture. These are easily the bits where Dream Scenario doesn’t have anything particularly substantive to offer, because it’s nothing more than the same angry rumble you’ll be hearing online. Unfortunately, it also seems to plague most of the movie’s second half, where the existential dread of the uncomfortable nature of the comedy just seems to fade away very slowly, and it seems to aim for the easy targets.

Think that there’s a better film that could easily be made out of this story, because it’s also fun seeing Nicolas Cage putting so much effort into what amounts to him playing the most boring man imaginable. Kristoffer Borgli sets out to make this tale of sudden celebrity status into something especially absurd as he plays around with the concept of dream logic, but I think that he seems to reach a bit too high with very easy targets. At the same time, there’s no doubt that watching Dream Scenario will be setting yourself up for a consistent laugh riot from start to finish.

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Watch the trailer right here.

All images via A24.

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Directed by Kristoffer Borgli
Screenplay by Kristoffer Borgli
Produced by Lars Knudsen, Ari Aster, Tyler Campellone, Jacob Jaffke, Nicolas Cage
Starring Nicolas Cage, Julianne Nicholson, Michael Cera, Tim Meadows, Dylan Gelula, Dylan Baker
Running Time: 100 minutes
Release Date: November 10, 2023