We got a new Nic Cage movie released this weekend focusing on celebrity and the potential toxicity that comes along with that. It was called Dream Scenario.

Nic Cage played a college professor named Paul Matthews, a hapless man who is just going through an unremarkable life. Then, one day, he discovered that people were all dreaming about him, people that he did not know. Paul would just walk through the dream like an observer, doing nothing to help the person. It got to the point where real life Paul was feeling guilt over not helping despite the fact that he had zero control over it.

As this phenomenon went viral, Paul started to become well known and in demand. This is, until the dreams he was appearing in began to turn dark and nightmarish. The people who were fascinated by Paul before turned on him quickly, forcing Paul into trying to get through his life.

Nicolas Cage was sensational as Paul, playing completely against his typical character. Paul was frumpy and depressed, unable to understand why things were happening and why people were turning on him considering he had done nothing wrong. You can’t help be feel sorry for Paul considering things were happening that were totally out of his own control.

I really enjoyed this film, but I will say that the ending did not strike as well as I would have liked it. Unfortunately, I can’t talk about that without diving into spoilers. Suffice it to say that I did not love the way the film concluded.

There were some funny scenes of the film, which is listed by A24 as a comedy/horror film. I’m not sure that is an accurate classification, but there are several funny moments. Nicolas Cage does great job bringing this schulb to life, and seeing what happens to him is a warning about the fickleness of pop culture as well as a commentary on cancel culture.

3.8 stars