In Dreams

In Dreams
by Neil Jordan

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Movie Reviews of In Dreams

Movie Review: Haunting, moving, emotional, and totally involving!
Summary: 5 Stars

Annette Bening is Claire Cooper, wife of an airline pilot, mother of a little girl, and illustrator of childrens books. The family lives in a town that sits near a reservoir, which covers a ghost town that was abandoned in order for the reservoir to be built. Claire is beginning to have strange dreams as soon as the film begins, one being a little girl who is led into an orchard-like place full of apples by a long-haired individual. Soon after, her daughter is abducted from a school play, causing Claire to realize that the dreams she is having are visions of the future, believing that the killer is channeling them into her mind in order for her to find him. After they find the body of her daughter, Claire runs her car off the dam, ultimately surviving the fall and going into a coma for six months. During this period, she has visions of an orchard filled with apples, nursery rhymes written in blood on a wall, and a small boy tied to a bed in a room slowly filling with water. Going home from the hospital proves to be a bad decision, and after much mayhem, she is put into a mental institution, where she begins having dreams about the death of her husband. As the dreams keep coming, people keep thinking that she is crazy, until she finally escapes to find herself face-to-face with the killer himself, who has a dangerous surprise for her.

Little can be said to denounce the film; it simply is that good. What really keeps it moving are the macabre images of decay and death the pervade throughout the entire movie, keeping in touch with the sinister environment that is necessary for the movie's story. The images of the haunting dreams are the most significant, and these scenes are shot with poor color clarity and slightly soft-edged images to complete the sense of surrealism. The underwater photography used in filming the reservoir sequences is stupendous, and quite frightening as well. Moviegoers expect to see a sunken ship or marine vessel underneath the surface of water, but to see a town completely covered with water is a whole new ball game, a game that seems to have won. There is not an over-abundance of blood or gore in the film; scenes include a second-long shot of a dog eating a corpse, a man wearing sunglasses being stabbed in the eye, and a woman with slit wrists that hardly bleed.

The story is based on the novel "Doll's Eyes," written by Bari Wood, and screenwriters Bruce Robinson and Neil Jordan, who also directed the piece, have done a masterful job in bringing to the story a sense of overwhelming suspense and uncertainty. The truly magnificent aspect of the story is that everything that happens in the beginning and middle will all be tied back together in the end, making for a very satisfying and involving thriller.

The performances by the actors also make the movie enjoyable. This is, without a doubt, the best of Annette Bening's films, encompassing even her performance in American Beauty. This is clearly her movie, as she will be the centrifuge for all that goes on throughout the entire experience. Robert Downey, Jr. is a perfect psychotic, his long, dirty hair and sensational eyes pierce right into the subconscious of those who see him act in this movie, the element that creates the upset in Claire's life. Aidan Quinn is a convincing husband, though I did not particularly care for the way in which the character of the husband is portrayed; he could've been a little more sensitive to his wife's feelings. Stephen Rea plays the doctor who refuses to give up on Claire, and he does a good job in carrying us with him in his quest for the truth, even if that quest picks up later than is needed.

Under the glorious direction of Neil Jordan, "In Dreams" is a perfect and almost sparkling example of terrific thriller-making. It may well be said that this is the best movie I have ever seen in a long time, simply for the fact that it is solid entertainment that never stops moving, even if its audiences cannot keep up.

Summary of In Dreams