Dream Scenario Plot Summary
In director Kristoffer Borgli’s film Dream Scenario, Nicolas Cage inexplicably invades everyone’s dreams as the unassuming evolutionary biology professor Paul Matthews, whose embrace of a sudden and unearned fame comes back to bite him and his family.
Why does everyone turn on Paul Matthews?
Paul at first enjoys being the center of everyone’s attention. That is, until their dreams of him turn sour. People start dreaming that Paul turns dangerous. The dreams feel so tangible that many people start to fear Paul in real life, telling them his presence makes them feel unsafe. He’s turned away from restaurants, the class he teaches is postponed, and he’s even turned away from his own daughter’s play. And even though Paul did nothing to deserve this vitriol, all the sudden hatred causes him to act out in anger (he even accidentally injures a school teacher) which only makes people hate him more.
How does Dream Scenario end?
Dream Scenario ends with these incidents mostly blown over, although they have inextricably changed not only Paul’s life, but the world. A technology now exists that can place you in other people’s dreams. It’s being used mainly so that corporations can advertise their products to people in their dreams.
Paul and Janet are now divorced, as his sudden fame put too much of a strain on their home life. But Paul misses her and desperately wants to get her back. He uses the dream technology to appear in her dream, in which he saves her life. When she wakes, he just wishes it were real.
What is Dream Scenario about?
In Dream Scenario, Borgli delivers a hilarious and inventive setup that promises unique insights into cancel culture, the destructive pursuit of fame, and the reshaping of art and individuality into products of corporate interest.
Paul’s journey seems to be a multifaceted cautionary tale. Don’t pursue fame, it says; pursue achievement. Fame and people’s perception of you can’t be controlled, so don’t get so caught up in appearances. In the end, you may find that, like Paul, you haven’t done anything to deserve people’s attention. The images people see in their dreams are like the personas we see online–they’re not real.
Read More: Dream Scenario Movie Review
Everything after he laid down in the basement of his friend with the white light that won’t turn off, was a dream. He list everything and tried to regain it in his dream but came out all thwarted as dreams do