Director: Kristoffer Borgli
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Julianne Nicholson, Jessica Clement, Star Slade, Lily Bird
Duration: 104 mins
Available in: Theatres
A group of zebras is called a dazzle — because they create an optical illusion with their striped bodies when they herd together. “If you stick your head out, you make yourself a target,” says Paul Mathews (Nicolas Cage), a professor of evolutionary biology at Osler University. As far as analogies go, it dances on your nose. Paul, most often referred to as “boring” till a certain point, his life a portrait of suburban normalcy, stays unremarkably camouflaged, until, out of the blue, he randomly starts showing up in people’s dreams. His Facebook inbox is full of folks who flit between mistaking his recurring appearance in their conscience as a sign to connect with him, or are suspended in a state of confusion till it becomes apparent that this is a mass phenomenon. And, it is not just distant acquaintances or strangers that are conjuring him up in their dreams — his own daughter, students and close circle of friends seem to manifest him in them as well. He asks everyone the same question: What was he doing there? The standard answer, every time, is nothing (at least, in the beginning). Paul is a passive figure who is oblivious to the happenings within the dream, even when they are specifically calling out to him for his assistance when they are being murdered or are troubled in any other particular way.
A Bystander and an Offender
Writer-director Kristoffer Borgli sets up a very interesting premise: Here is an ‘average’ middle-aged man who has unwittingly gone viral. The film deals with the dystopian pace at which images can circulate on social media, and the terrifying randomness of virality. Why is Paul Mathews showing up in people’s dreams?
What we do know, however, is that the price of fame is the burden of becoming a public figure. Before he can grasp the context of his celebrity, Paul finds himself fully jovially immersed in this weird phenomenon, unable to separate the idea of fame from the distinctive notoriety he would like. He stokes this virality with gusto, appearing on a news platform, and then asking his full class of students (his classroom always used to be half-filled) about what he was appearing to do in their dreams. The paradox of fame — he’s widely known, and yet very few really know who he is — hasn’t settled in on him yet.
Those subjected, then haunted by Paul — initially an unassuming bystander in their dreams, and later a nefarious offender — are individuals who are amused, aroused, and later horrified with their perceptions of him, even unable to hear the sound of his voice without feeling triggered to flee.