| In Dreams | | Cast : | Annette Bening, Robert Downey Jr. | | Director : | Neil Jordan | | Studio : | Dreamworks Skg | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby | | Released Date : | January 15, 1999 | | DVD Released Date : | January 06, 2004 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), English (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | June 10, 2005 | | Summary | Saturated colorful fury... | Content
 | In Dreams is an extremely surreal movie shot in beautiful colors and unforgettable imagery. Quite shocking and violent, the scenes will stay with you for days after viewing this. Annette Benning gives a top notch preformance she IS Claire!!!!And Robert Downey Jr. gives a chilling preformance as Vivian, the confused villan.Highly reccomended nail biter...just wait until the climax at the end on the bridge... |
| Rating | | | Date | January 09, 2005 | | Summary | The Nadir of Many A Career | Content
| Movie: *1/2 DVD Quality: **** DVD Extras: ***
Don't be fooled by the pedigrees of the distinguished cast and crew members; "In Dreams" is without doubt THE career low for director/screenwriter Neil Jordan as well as actors Annette Bening, Aidan Quinn, Stephen Rea, and even Robert Downey, Jr. (who's made a handful of turkeys throughout his rollercoaster career). The film aspires to be a psychological mystery-suspense-thriller in the vein of "Psycho" and "The Silence of the Lambs", but is completely undone by a cut-and-paste script filled with unlikeable and unbelievable characters; uninspired direction; shallow performances; choppy editing; and a grossly ineffective musical score. Only one scene in the movie is played convincingly, and that's the one in which Annette Bening finally begins to go over the edge mentally; pitching her voice in a lower tone and undergoing swift changes of emotion, Bening gives a brief and tantalizing glimpse of what she might have been able to achieve with a similar character in a better movie. Unfortunately, that one scene does not make the chore of sitting through the other 97 minutes of pretention and tedium worthwhile.
In terms of technical quality, the DVD presentation of this bomb is more than acceptable. Picture quality is clear and sharp; the sound is a bit fuzzy in one or two spots, but that may have been the intent of the filmmakers - I was so bored and so eager for the movie to be over that I didn't stop to replay the bits of dialogue in question. The DVD extras are so-so: thumbnail cast and crew Biographies that mention much better movies; several lackluster screens filled with "Production Notes"; and finally, the Theatrical Trailer, which is probably the best thing on the disc because it's short and features quick flashes of the film's visual highlights. "In Dreams" is not recommended viewing, even for those viewers who enjoy bad movies for their camp value. |
| Rating | | | Date | August 19, 2004 | | Summary | Discount-Rack Thriller | Content
| Note the going used price for this movie: 14 cents. According to imdb.com IN DREAMS cost $30M to make, and so far has reaped $11.9M. What does this mean? This film will appeal to lovers of the psychics-who-predict-murders genre.
Personally, I love movies that involve precognition. But, where this film goes wrong, is in the assumption that we don't already know this genre. So many of the situations here are cliche. Example (warning, partial spoilers here) no one takes Claire's visions seriously, until someone dies, and even then, she's locked up and can't communicate appropriately or in time to prevent the next tragedy. While you may argue that this formula fits the genre, the characters I just don't buy.
There's a dream interpreter, who doesn't interpret dreams. He just sits and listens, nodding his head without comment. This is very disturbing stuff that Claire is telling, and all the doctor can offer is thorazine!
And this serial killer Claire has a psychic connection to. Are we supposed to empathize with him or not. She's more concerned about him, at times, than her own family. And then, she hates him, and then feels apathetic towards him, and then sympathizes with him and then- (the over-the-top end sequence they should've cut from the film.) How am I supposed to feel about this freak - this kidnapper of children. The movie shows what a tough life he had - and then you're supposed to hate him. What?
Good things about this movie: The film starts off with a great premise - an idea (involving the making of a dam) which could have been the subject of a movie in and of itself. The photography is excellent. Sound design and editing is good - the pacing is such that - it smooths out any rough spots in the story.
Bad things: the acting, and the script (or should i say, the lack of believability in any of these characters). The overall story is decent. Fun. But standard thriller. But I get no sense, whatsoever, that Annette Bening is the mother of Katie Sagona. Nor do I get the feeling that Aidan Quinn is Bening's husband. Why? All the dialogue is too cleanly spoken. All too perfect. And not real.
These are NOT candid moments here, of a family slowly being torn apart - due to Claire's nightmare visions. No.
There is a scene designed to make you feel the strong love between mother and daughter. (shot beautifully against the afternoon sun by a lake) Claire [Annette Bening] and Rebecca [Katie Sagona] recite lines from SNOW WHITE to each other. How poignant. It was intended to be. But, it plays like two strangers hired to be nice to each other in front of a camera.
Sagona notes in one scene that her goldfish died, and it now resides in the freezer. The line is delivered with no emotion. You get the feeling there never was a goldfish, nor did she ever care about it - whether it was in the bowl or in the freezer.
Granted, I'm being harsh on a child actor here, and that's not fair. However, ALL the scenes play as if they were well-photographed footage of actors reciting words. Words with no meaning behind them. The only scenes that play tolerably well are the ones without talking.
I like Bening as an actress - but in this film, she's forced to act hysterical, again, and again, and again - and so much of it seems unmotivated, or covers up the lack of a character. It's as if director Neil Jordan gave Bening little or nothing to work with - (like: 'you are grieving during this scene') and she had to do the best she could - concocting something from obvious voids in the script.
The movie is too clean. Too expensive. One feels it came out of a glossy magazine. There's no grit to it. The actors involved in this production looks too well-fed, and too well-paid to have any appreciation of the horrors a clairvoyant person could experience in such a devastating situation. There's no empathy. And as a result, it's very difficult to empathize with any of the characters in this pulp story. |
| Rating | | | Date | August 16, 2004 | | Summary | Watching Nightmares | Content
| What a wonderfully bizarre thriller this is! Annette Benning's performance alone makes it worth watching - but there is still so much more. The story is so unsettling you never quiet get your grip once the film starts moving. From the opening credits - where a ghost town becomes submerged as a reservoir to the jump-out-of-your-seat ending, this one is a real keeper. The photography and set pieces are absolutely beautiful and do much put the viewer in Benning's head. A wild, frightening trip. |
| Rating | | | Date | March 04, 2004 | | Summary | "In dreams I walk with you"... | Content
| Somehow I feel that if this film had been even stranger, it may have been more critically popular. Had it not bothered with as linear a storyline and just followed the dream-logic plotlines it may have been hailed as a David Lynch-like fairy tale nightmare; add more violence and it could be a Dario Argento film. But instead we have something by Neil Jordan, who gives this film more wonder and magic (albeit dark) than anyone else could. I think it's a great film. See, it's called In Dreams, not In Logic. Its surreality is its strength, staying visually spectacular at all times and boosted by an absolutely great performance by Annette Bening. I think the plot contrivances are almost subversive; OF COURSE there are moments of coincidence because that's what happens in dreams. Moments of opportunity or clarity (claire-ity?) arrive for our heroine and she takes them in stride. The film's general feel is continuously reinforced by the eerie flooded dream village in the reservoir, and the fairy tale orchard. This is a Grim tale alright, but its beautiful, trippy and saturated in atmosphere. Killer ending too, closing a disturbingly satisfying thriller by a masterful director. Highly recommended for those who like to dream. |
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