The Info

Directed by: Neil Jordan
Written by: Bruce Robinson, Neil Jordan
Starring: Annette Bening, Aidan Quinn, Stephen Rea, Robert Downey Jr.
Produced by: Stephen Woolley
 

The Nutshell

A woman starts to daydream the actions of a nearby killer with deadly results.

The Review

    I hate to see a great idea wasted. In Dreams represents a good idea turned into a bad movie. Directed by Neil Jordan, In Dreams has a great first half but then plummets badly in the second.

    Annette Bening plays Claire Cooper, your average mom and wife... except for the fact that she has had "visions" her whole life. One day she starts having her dreams in the daytime while she is awake. They seem to lead to the answer to a missing-girl case currently going on in her town. Eventually her dreams lead to her own daughter's death and she loses control... literally. Several suicide attempts later, Claire is in a mental hospital being treated by Dr. Silverman (Rea). In the end the identity of the killer responsible for the deaths of the young girls is slowly revealed, his connection to Claire unravelled and the plot slides into typical, uninspired contrived crap.

    As Claire, Bening one of only two good things about In Dreams. She ably inhabits a role that should have been mediocre considering the movie it is in. But Bening brings a realness to Claire that is refreshing. She does not bring Claire straight to insanity and attempted suicide right away but rather as the dreams intensify and their impact comes closer to her heart, she slowly falls apart in stages. Once in the institution, she is believable as a woman temporarily gone insane, never once overacting. The same cannot be said for the rest of the cast. Quinn is merely window dressing as Claire's husband Paul, while Stephen Rea takes on a bizarre Bronx accent as Dr. Silverman. Why he could not have been an Irish psychiatrist is beyond me but he spends so much time on obviously making sure he enunciates every syllable properly that he puts absolutely no emotion into his character. I think that Jordan needs to learn that not every one of his movies has to have Stephen Rea in it. The absolutely worst role in the film goes to Robert Downey Jr. How he can go being absolutely superb in Two Girls and a Guy to dreadful here is beyond me. He plays the killer and he fumbles the job badly.

    About the only other good thing about the film is the cinematography. Shot by Darius Khondji (Se7en), In Dreams is visually eerie. There are numerous shots of a disturbing, underground town (it had been flooded to make a reservoir) and the film simply has a beautiful cast to it. Also eerie is the music by Elliot Goldenthal (Interview with the Vampire). Unfortunately, none of these good traits is enough to save a movie that starts out wonderfully, and ends horribly. It's always disappointing to find that the psychological thriller you have payed money to see is neither thrilling nor psychologically intense.

Copyright - Tim Chandler

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