This is a really strange story, I don't recall seeing any movie with a comparable theme. That is neither good nor bad, it all depends on the how it is developed and handled. I think for the most part it is handled well, and interestingly, but to me the final scenes and the developments in them are not as interesting as the concepts developed in the first half of the movie.
I always like Nicolas Cage as an actor, I don't always like the characters he plays. Here he is PhD Paul Matthews, a university professor. A sort of vanilla type of guy, short on fashion and short on personality. He doesn't stick out in any particular way, even to his wife and two teenage daughters. In my time all those years ago he might be called a 'square.'
Then we see a scene outside, a back yard, a swimming pool. The daughter is on a recliner, reading, when keys, then a shoe, and finally a body, drop from the sky and into the pool. Paul is there, next to the pool, he just observes dispassionately. No reaction, he does nothing. We wonder if a plane broke apart. At least I did.
Quickly we realize this was his daughter's dream. Then as others, some complete strangers, or some his students, he always just stands around, does nothing. That is the recurring theme. At first. Eventually dreams turn to increasingly darker situations.
Part of the story is the natural attempt for him and others to explain the phenomenon, but no one can. Then the story heads in the direction of the influence of social media. Paul becomes a meme. He becomes well-known for all the wrong reasons. And the outfall is all negative. He gets un-invited to important meetings, he gets harassed at a local diner, prohibiting teaching his class.
In the DVD extras Cage himself explains that he reads lots of scripts that he doesn't think would make a good movie but, when he read the script for this one, he "knew" he had to make it. Frankly, some of it passes over my head, like the book he eventually wrote or why so many turned against him even though he did nothing. They weren't his dreams. And maybe that is just the point, in this day of "cancel culture" it is intended to show how easily and quickly someone can be cancelled when hordes of others jump on the bandwagon even if the person did nothing wrong.
Anyway, my wife and I enjoyed it, at home of DVD from our public library. Nic Cage is great, he even shaved the top of his head to look like an old professor with male pattern baldness.
I always like Nicolas Cage as an actor, I don't always like the characters he plays. Here he is PhD Paul Matthews, a university professor. A sort of vanilla type of guy, short on fashion and short on personality. He doesn't stick out in any particular way, even to his wife and two teenage daughters. In my time all those years ago he might be called a 'square.'
Then we see a scene outside, a back yard, a swimming pool. The daughter is on a recliner, reading, when keys, then a shoe, and finally a body, drop from the sky and into the pool. Paul is there, next to the pool, he just observes dispassionately. No reaction, he does nothing. We wonder if a plane broke apart. At least I did.
Quickly we realize this was his daughter's dream. Then as others, some complete strangers, or some his students, he always just stands around, does nothing. That is the recurring theme. At first. Eventually dreams turn to increasingly darker situations.
Part of the story is the natural attempt for him and others to explain the phenomenon, but no one can. Then the story heads in the direction of the influence of social media. Paul becomes a meme. He becomes well-known for all the wrong reasons. And the outfall is all negative. He gets un-invited to important meetings, he gets harassed at a local diner, prohibiting teaching his class.
In the DVD extras Cage himself explains that he reads lots of scripts that he doesn't think would make a good movie but, when he read the script for this one, he "knew" he had to make it. Frankly, some of it passes over my head, like the book he eventually wrote or why so many turned against him even though he did nothing. They weren't his dreams. And maybe that is just the point, in this day of "cancel culture" it is intended to show how easily and quickly someone can be cancelled when hordes of others jump on the bandwagon even if the person did nothing wrong.
Anyway, my wife and I enjoyed it, at home of DVD from our public library. Nic Cage is great, he even shaved the top of his head to look like an old professor with male pattern baldness.