Dream Scenario review – ‘A wildly original and genuinely nightmarish comedy’ | Films | Entertainment

Aisling Scenario finds the Oscar winner in an unusually restrained mood, playing a boring sad-sack university professor.

Cage’s job is to raise a smile and really set up a weird plot.

There’s no shouting or shaking of sets like in Pig or Mandy, but his performance is just as explosive.

Balding evolutionary biologist Paul Matthews is an ordinary man who finds himself in very unusual circumstances. Over the first 45 very funny minutes, Paul becomes America’s most famous talentless person.

This is not about a YouTube channel or a reality show. Paul keeps showing up in people’s dreams, first his family’s dreams, then his students’ dreams, then the dreams of strangers across America.

He starts having nightmares as a passive, useless observer of disasters involving devastating earthquakes or fat alligators.

Paul wants to do something more heroic but decides to lean into his newfound fame by signing up with a PR company.

Pollster Michael Cera has struck a deal with a fizzy drinks company (if he has a can of pop on the internet, maybe people will wake up asking for Sprite?). But Paul wants a publishing deal for a book on ants that he hasn’t even started writing.

Then, people start dreaming about being attacked by Paul’s psycho. The star is considered a threat, his wife can’t look at him, and he’s fired.

As the film turns into a parable about online fame and the undoing of culture, the laughs start to dry up. Still, this really original and serious comedy stays with you.

Dream Case, Certificate 15, In cinemas now