Dream Scenario

MOVIE #1,553 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 04.18.24 Starting in 2020, I decided to watch & review the entire Nicolas Cage filmography in alphabetical order. This is 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔜𝔢𝔞𝔯 𝔬𝔣 ℭ𝔞𝔤𝔢 – Chapter 60. The Cageaissance continues with our man’s first foray into the A24-iverse. Dream Scenario is the third feature film by Norwegian-born director Kristoffer Borgli who gained buzz with his 2022 picture Sick of Myself, which had been on my radar before he linked up with Cage for his first English-language followup. (His first flick, 2017's DRIB, "a real documentary based on a fake energy drink" also sounds fascinating.) I’ll say right off the bat that, while this is at times tangled up in the idea of itself, I still loved it. We open with Cage's daughter retelling a dream in which her dad won't help her as she is lifted toward the sky. The special effects look good…

Cut to Cage doing a college lecture on zebra camouflage where he yells at some of the students. This is a very stylized performance, he's doing a high-pitched voice. After the lecture he has a lunch meeting that he records at his wife's request. He's immediately defensive and pathetic, and he cringes while listening back in the car…


Later that night he goes out to the theater with his wife and he runs into an old girlfriend who tells him that he's been popping up in her dreams all the time. I really like this Cage performance: it’s strange but not in the big way one might expect. Julianne Nicholson who plays his wife is very good too.

He goes out for coffee with his ex who wants to write about her dreams. He reluctantly agrees.

Tim Meadows plays his friend, the dean of students at his college…


That night at dinner, Cage gets a call from an old classmate (the always good Dylan Baker) and the plot thickens…


Then Cage comes to realize he has 100s of Facebook messages from people who are seeing him in their dreams. He's immediately a national news story, an instantly viral and very peculiar celebrity.

His next class is full of students who have seen him in their dreams and the gist is always the same: something strange, horrific or dangerous is happening and Cage is just randomly present, not engaging or helping in any way. The thematic parallels to his character's life are clear: he's inadequate and without agency, just living his life as part of the scenery.

Later, a home invader breaks into the Cage residence and threatens to kill him before breaking down in sobs. The cops tell him that he should better protect his home and family because of this newfound notoriety.

Cage admits to Tim Meadows that he might want to use this fame for professional and financial gains (he wants to publish a book). Then he takes a meeting with Michael Cera, Dylan Gelula, and Kate Berlant (just a murder’s row supporting cast, honestly) who work for a trendy Internet-age P.R. agency called “Thoughts?” This is a great scene…


Cage tries to convince them that he only wants to use this fame to pivot back to the academic work he's already engaged in. But the agency really only wants him because of the dreams thing. Michael Cera keeps bringing the conversation back to Sprite. Dylan Gelula clearly has the hots for him. They go out and have a super awkward interaction and Cage is very funny…


She admits that her dreams with Cage have been sexual. He's relieved and excited to hear that someone has finally had a dream where he's not just standing around.

Also, it's Halloween night and we see someone dressed up as Cage. He goes back to Dylan Gelula’s apartment for another drink. She tries to get him to reenact her sex dream scenario. But of course it's nothing like the dream and Cage farts…


He cums in his pants, farts again, and then leaves. Amazing.

That same night, Cage's daughter is awoken by a scary nightmare where her dad is attacking her. Then we see Cage read his contemporary’s published work where she stole his ideas and he freaks out in anger. And now, as if his rage has been transmuted, he is showing up as a deranged and angry presence in everybody's dreams (in one of them he kills a student of his with a hammer). The movie gets a little political when Cage meets with Tim Meadows…


He goes to his old friend Dylan Baker's dinner party but no one shows up because they’ve all been having Cage nightmares, including the host’s wife, who can’t stomach being around him. It goes very badly and they're asked to leave.

We then cut to a group healing session for all of Cage's students. It turns into an exposure therapy exercise when the instructor brings Cage into the gymnasium. All the students leave in a rush. And Cage finds his car spray painted with the word “LOSER.” He's placed on paid leave by the university.

Cage's wife is also feeling the brunt of this new development and her coworker evokes “cancel culture” in their discussion.

His daughter says they're calling him Freddy Krueger at school. Cage gets increasingly ostracized and isolated.

He has a call with the P.R. agency who think they should go the alt right route with his new deranged persona, maybe they can get him an interview with Tucker or Rogan, they tell him. He proceeds to get beat up in public as his life further unravels.

Things come to a head when he's shot with two arrows by a psycho in camouflage, but this turns out to be a dream as well: Cage’s own nightmare and he's the man in camo.

After he's asked not to attend one of his daughter's school functions, he makes a teary video message addressing the situation…


This movie is obviously obsessed with buzzy language of the day, like “lived experience” and about how quick everyone is to get offended or feel like a victim. I'm sure there are reactionary readings of this film (I honestly don’t know, though), and perhaps it is built to inspire those feelings. But I think there's something more nuanced going on and it's absolutely anchored by one of the great Cage performances (and not just late period Cage either).

His plea backfires (of course) and his wife kicks him out of the house. He goes to sleep in Tim Meadows’s basement. He sneaks into his daughter's school play and accidentally injures a teacher trying to keep him, making everyone's collective nightmares come alive.

From here the film fades to black and when it returns we're watching a fake infocommercial for a new tech innovation / device called Norio…


(Nice Cousin Greg cameo.)

Cage, newly separated from his wife, goes looking for a new place with his kids. The collective dreams have suddenly stopped and Cage is working on a book deal in the waning days of his fame. But he's clearly unhappy.

He's visited in his dreams by young influencers wearing the Norio device trying to sell him products…


In turn, Cage gets one of the wearable dream transporters as he goes to Paris with Michael Cera. The book he's published via a small French publisher has been retitled I Am Your Nightmare (from his original, Dream Scenario). The poorly-attended book signing goes awry when an overhead light falls on his head.

The movie ends with Cage invading his wife's dreams wearing David Byrnes’ oversized Talking Heads suit and rescuing her. He says, “I wish this was real,” before ascending into the sky.

Obviously A LOT transpires in what is effectively a denouement in service of a third act that presents more questions than answers. I'm not sure the rushed ending totally works but I enjoyed it. (This always felt like a movie where it was going to be tough to stick the landing.) Overall, I appreciate the high concept and thought everything was executed wonderfully, the very busy conclusion aside.

Ultimately, I think this is a film about how almost all of us feel insignificant. The sociocultural aspects might feel like tryhard attempts to appeal to some zeitgeist, but I think they're best viewed as the framing device for the bigger, human themes. It's a messy movie, sure, but — as I've said time and time again — I'll take a beautiful mess that's wholly original over recycled concepts and conventional schlock any day.

Next up — RIGHT NOW — we have another, special Chapter in the Cage review series. That’s right, folks, I watched… The Flash.

THE VERDICT: 9 CAGES OUT OF 10 • CLICK HERE for all 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔜𝔢𝔞𝔯 𝔬𝔣 ℭ𝔞𝔤𝔢 Chapters + Ongoing Rankings.

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Dream Scenario is a 2023 American black comedy fantasy film written and directed by Kristoffer Borgli. It is produced by Ari Aster and Lars Knudsen under their Square Peg banner, alongside Nicolas Cage, Jacob Jaffke, and Tyler Campellone. It stars Cage, Julianne Nicholson, Michael Cera, Tim Meadows, Dylan Gelula and Dylan Baker. Cage plays Paul Matthews, a mild-mannered biology professor who begins appearing in the dreams of others. It was released on September 9, 2023.