# In Dreams (1999)

### reviewed by
Nathaniel R. Atcheson

    In Dreams (1999)

    Director: Neil Jordan
    Cast: Annette Bening, Dennis Boutsikaris, Ken Cheeseman, Robert Downey
    Jr., Aidan Quinn, Stephen Rea
    Screenplay: Neil Jordan, Bruce Robinson
    Producers: Stephen Woolley
    Runtime:
    US Distribution: DreamWorks
    Rated R: violence, language

Copyright 1998 Nathaniel R. Atcheson

The worst way to begin a year is with a massive disappointment. And yet, DreamWorks has delivered what will likely be one of the most disappointing films of 1999. Here we have In Dreams, a thriller directed by the immensely talented Neil Jordan (The Crying Game, Mona Lisa). It has an extremely able cast, led by Annette Bening and supported by Aidan Quin, Robert Downey Jr., and Stephen Rea. It also has my favorite cinematographer, Darius Khondji (Seven, Alien Resurrection), and one of my favorite music composers, Elliott Goldenthal. And, it's been brought to us by DreamWorks, who have promised to bring out only quality entertainment.

I had forgotten that DreamWorks' first picture was The Peacemaker. They are capable of making lousy films, but In Dreams isn't lousy as much as it's plainly mediocre. And it's such a shame: not only is there limitless talent involved, but the film is actually quite good for well over an hour. It's a dark, intelligent film that seems to explore its possibilities; but, in the final forty-five minutes, it becomes implausible, silly, and almost unwatchably bad at times. The conclusion is moderately satisfying, but nothing can overcome the sloppy way it reaches its resolution.

Benning and Quinn play Claire and Paul Cooper; Claire is a woman who has "dreams" when she's wide awake -- dreams that seem to show her past events. Usually, these events are intertwined with crimes: in the beginning of the film, she sees a young girl being led through an orchid by an ill-adjusted man, and she thinks the girl has been kidnapped in real life. When her own daughter gets kidnapped, Claire realizes that the visions she has are actually visions of the future.

When the fate of her daughter is discovered, Claire loses her mind. She can't control the dreams, and it becomes clear that she has some kind of connection with the ill-adjusted man (who turns out later to be Robert Downey Jr.). A psychiatrist, Dr. Silverman (Stephen Rae), tries to evaluate her dreams, but no one really believes her. Eventually, after multiple suicide attempts, Claire is committed to a mental institution. And, as luck would have it, she's placed in the exact same room in which her psychotic male counterpart had lived during the early years of his life.

It really does sound like a silly story. Credit Jordan for making it seem so disturbing and intriguing for the first two-thirds of it. The background story for In Dreams revolves around a town that had been flooded twenty years before the events in the film take place; the early scenes, which explore the deep blue streets of the underwater town, are extremely eerie. Khondji and Jordan work well together to create a dark, silvery-blue mood throughout the film. There isn't a shot in the picture that doesn't look great -- the various settings (the Coopers' old house, the mental institution, etc.) are all very well photographed.

In addition, Annette Bening is exceptional in the lead role. She carries the film effortlessly, giving depth and personality to a character who might not have been very interesting on paper. Bening does a fantastic job of showing us Claire's descent into madness; it never seems overwrought or phony, and it's so believable that in one particular scene (in which she's trying to convince Dr. Silverman that her husband is going to be murdered) I became visibly agitated due to the effectiveness of her performance. Most of the supporting performances are less than noteworthy -- Quinn is reliable, as always, but Rae seems present only because Jordan always has him present.

The only other performance worth mentioning is that of Robert Downey Jr., and he is one of the reasons the film becomes so bad towards the end. Now, I do realize that it was up to Jordan to make sure that Downey Jr. didn't overact, but both men are responsible for the laughable absurdities that take place on screen in the final act of In Dreams. I was willing to overlook the fact that Claire seems to overcome her insanity to turn into a pseudo-action hero. I was willing to overlook the ridiculous way in which some of the characters act to serve the plot. But I can not overlook Downey Jr.'s performance, and the purely cliched mess of a character that he plays.

Hasn't the I'm-psycho-because-my-mother-made-me-do-it motif been done before? And why is it that all psycho killers have to have problems with their genders? Do they all speak like five-year-olds trapped in thirty-year-old bodies? In its final thirty minutes, In Dreams explores nothing but a truckload of cliches; I was too distracted to even immerse myself in the brilliant image on screen. It's so profoundly dumb that it essentially ruins what came before. At the core, In Dreams is just another mediocre thriller. But it could have been something unusually good: the people involved are good at what they do, and the first hour is proof of that. But what happened with this sloppy conclusion? I would rather have never seen the end.

    Psychosis Rating: 5/10

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               Nathaniel R. Atcheson

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