# What Dreams May Come (1998)

### reviewed by
Kevin Patterson

    Film Review by Kevin Patterson

    WHAT DREAMS MAY COME
    Rating: *** (out of four)
    PG-13, 1998
    Director: Vincent Ward
    Screenplay: Ron Bass
    Starring Cast: Robin Williams, Annabella Sciorra, Cuba Gooding Jr.

WHAT DREAMS MAY COME is one of those films that takes a fascinating premise and doesn't do as much with it as it could, but in the end, the mere fact that anyone even tried this in the first place was enough to make me like the film. The subject of the afterlife and what happens if two soul-mates don't go to the same place has undeniable emotional and spiritual power, and frankly it deserves a better treatment than that given it by director Vincent Ward and writer Ron Bass. Still, I'm glad someone even let them put this on the screen in the first place.

The screenplay introduces us to a happy, loving family of four--Chris (Robin Williams), his wife Annie (Annabella Sciorra), and their two children--and then quickly proceeds to kill three of them (Chris and the two children) in car accidents. Chris finds himself in heaven, which initially, in one of the many wondrous visual sights in this film, appears in the form of one of Annie's impressionist paintings. He is still able to connect with what Annie is experiencing back on earth because, as his longtime deceased friend Albert (Cuba Gooding Jr.) tells him, he and Annie are a rarity: true soul-mates. This is a decent explanation for why Chris and Annie are so hopelessly devoted to each other, but it's also an excuse not to spend much time on character development. Since all the main characters except Annie are killed within the first ten minutes of the film, we never actually see the wonderful life that they once shared, and the emotional connection between characters and audience isn't what it needs to be for this sort of material. We believe it's there because the film literally tells us so, but we don't feel it to the extent that we should.

While Chris acclimates himself to the joys of heaven, Annie labors under severe depression, feeling she has nothing left to live for. One of the film's successes is the juxtaposition of the magnificent displays of paradise and the earth-bound gloom of Annie's lonely existence: the shift in tone between the two is noticeable and effective. In any case, Annie eventually decides to take her own life. Unfortunately, that means she can't pass to heaven and be re-united with Chris, and here the screenplay conjures up an inventive reason for why this is her fate that doesn't rely too heavily on the outdated "all suicides go to hell" theology. Chris, of course, won't accept this, and becomes determined, with the reluctant help of a few friends and of his children, to journey literally through hell and back to find Annie and save her from her self-defeating gloom.

The problem, however, is that Ward and Bass seem much more interested in suggesting these ideas about love, death, and the afterlife than they do in Chris and Annie themselves. They are, of course, inventive ideas. While they don't spend too much time with it, the afterlife they've created operates with its own set of rules that, as far as I can tell, have not been derived from any particular theological tradition. For example, those in heaven seem to have an incomplete picture of the mechanics of salvation, and while they know God is "up there somewhere shouting down His love," they apparently haven't actually sat down and had a cup of coffee with Him yet. And I would be neglecting a major aspect of the film's appeal if I didn't mention its epic, magnificent visual design of the idylls of heaven and the gloomy dungeons of hell.

But the film is still on tenuous ground here. Any story about eternal love and quests through heaven and hell risks degenerating into cheesy pseudo-philosophical fluff. WHAT DREAMS MAY COME mostly avoids the obvious pitfalls, though I could have done without all the scenes of people flying and a bizarre attempt at black comedy in which Chris has to traverse a "sea of faces" in Hell and accidentally steps on a few lost souls' noses ("Watch where you're stepping!" one of them yells). The story mostly flows nicely without too many problems; in fact, sometimes it goes to greater lengths with the exposition than seemed necessary. It starts to get a little rocky towards the end, however, as so many vague truisms are uttered in an attempt to explain what's happening that one more could have sent the whole thing into a dizzying metaphysical tailspin.

Even if you find the story trite and pointless (which I didn't), you should still see WHAT DREAMS MAY COME if nothing else for the outstanding design and scope of the visuals. (By the way, the Oscar committee really have their heads in the sand if this doesn't get nominated for something in the technical categories.) In the end, it scrapes through by the skin of its teeth, with its imaginative qualities carrying it through the weak spots to produce an honest but flawed drama. Still, when the greatest virtues of a film about the afterlife are intellectual and aesthetic rather than emotional and spiritual, it's a pretty sure sign that it wasn't all it could have been.

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