The most realistic sci-fi film of 2023 gives Nicolas Cage his best role in years.

In A24’s original new drama A dream scenario, Nicolas Cage plays “The Most Interesting Man in the World”. It seems like a given — Cage hasn’t met a wild swing he hasn’t taken with the most wild-eyed enthusiasm — but A dream scenario Hollywood’s Most Interesting Man Imagines Not So Interesting In fact, he’s a bit boring, a bit abrasive, and a bit unlikable. That is, until he starts appearing in everyone’s dreams.

Written and directed by Christopher Borghli, A dream scenario A mysteriously dark takedown of “cancellation culture” and all its sudden highs and equally sudden lows. In the film, Cage plays Paul Matthews, a hapless, hapless college professor suffering from a midlife crisis. But his crisis comes in a completely different way: he suddenly finds himself the star of his daughter’s strange dream. Hilariously, he is not disturbed by the content of her dream, which includes a terrifying scene in which mundane objects fall from the sky like meteors.

what does What bothers Paul is that he is doing nothing but raking leaves in his dream. Then, more people come to Paul confessing that they’ve dreamed about him: his ex-girlfriends, his students, hundreds of random strangers he’s never met before. Soon, he finds himself an overnight sensation, the man of everyone’s dreams. Paul is overjoyed at the attention but is dismayed at the indifference of his dreams to all the people hearing about his dreams. Predictably, that all changes when everyone’s dreams take a dangerous turn, and Paul becomes the world’s No. 1 pariah.

Produced by Ari Astor. dream scene, And it appropriately feels like a member of that lofty satire family. Beau is horrified.. Both are comedies shot like horror movies, taking everyday conflicts beyond the reasonable norm and amplifying every bad feeling until every social faux pas plays out like a terrifying jump scare. But while stumbling under Aster’s weight Beau is horrified.‘s wild odyssey, Borghli, in his first English-language feature, delivers a transfixing, wickedly funny comedy about the perils of celebrity that manages to walk the line between silly farce and secretly terrifying indie drama. she does.

Borghli and his director of photography Benjamin Loeb shot the film in a muted, natural color palette, cranking out the absurdity of each dream. Those scenes play out like horror movies, a little creepy and more often than not, apocalyptic. In one student’s dream, bodies are strewn across the classroom floor as desks and chairs go flying overhead—Paul, meanwhile, strolls in with an offering of sublime comfort. In another, a student is chased across a field by a faceless serial killer, and Paul is there too, enjoying nature.

Do these often terrifying dreams have any meaning? Borghli doesn’t offer much in the way of explanation, though one could read it as a reflection of our collective anxiety about an increasingly chaotic world – and, well, Paul is there. But just like the “dream epidemic” centered on Paul, no scientific reason can be found behind this phenomenon, nor is there any reason why dreams suddenly take a violent turn, all the same. in time This is where reality and dreams begin to blend, and the ominous tone that dances on its edges. A dream scenario The rest of the movie begins.

A dream scenarioThe unique tonal tightrope works thanks to Nicolas Cage’s lead performance as a completely pathetic Paul. Not since then. adaptation Kya Cage plays such a pitiful loser — a performance callback that feels fitting considering the two films’ similar reality-twisting narratives. He seems to love playing this kind of desperate common man. Paul isn’t your average guy, he’s an incredibly arrogant man who firmly believes he deserves more than his comfortable suburban life. This is why he so happily buys into his newfound celebrity, treating it as something he’s earned rather than a random event that happened to him. And when he ultimately gets canceled for something beyond his control, it’s hard to feel sorry for him. This makes for a clever diversion of Borghli’s viral fame, a notion so arbitrary, ridiculous, and fleeting that it could happen to anyone as undeserving as Paul.

A dream scenario It has such a tight, interesting premise that it inevitably loses steam once it moves beyond it, and the film’s final act seems to struggle to find the same sharp commentary as the beginning. The appearance of more star-studded cameos, including a hilarious Michael Cera as a shrewd businessman who wants to capitalize on Paul’s overnight fame, overloads A dream scenario With a lot of sarcasm until it starts to lose the plot.

But even then A dream scenario Moving on to the more absurd, it maintains the same view of cancellation culture. No, it’s not saying anything particularly new, and yes, it’s another rant against social media. But it’s as silly and ridiculous as the concept of viral fame that’s mocked. And best of all, it stars Nicolas Cage as the most interesting man in the world, in the funniest way possible.

A dream scenario Opens in theaters on November 10.