Film Review: What Dreams May Come

Since this type of film has never been done before, What Dreams May Come has the artistic license to probe the subject and enthrall us in a unique vision of life after death and death before life. To properly review this film I must first take you to a place many don’t want to explore. To understand this film you must face the fact that you are mortal. "What did he say?" You ask. Each of us knows we won’t live forever but we, if we will admit such, think we will outlive our contemporaries. That’s okay though as long as you think of death as a personal possibility and not some distant event that you’ll deal with on that mythical "one day". If the possibility of your own death is too surreal for you to examine now, you needn’t continue reading this review and you definitely should NOT see this film. Having said that, let’s get to the review.

What Dreams May Come is a compelling story of two people who fall in love, become best friends, soul mates, lovers, husband and wife, parents, grieving parents, widow /widower, survivors, only to come full circle in a unique reality of the human life cycle. Robin Williams fresh from his Oscar winning role in Good Will Hunting, pulls off a dazzling performance as the husband and best friend to Annabella Sciorra who played his wife, Annie Nielsen. The two fall in love in Switzerland, have two different but wonderful children who get killed as teenagers in an automobile accident leaving Chris and Annie Nielsen grieving and tortured survivors. Christopher’s strength pulls them through the tragedy as his love lifts and restores her faith in life. Four years later, Chris is killed while attempting to rescue the victim of an automobile accident he witnesses. By the way, the accident scene is gut wrenching but not gory and should serve as a subtle statement against aggressive driving. Meanwhile Chris(Robin Williams) finds himself in a state of near life, confused, not knowing what has happened only to be told by his in transit facilitator, Albert (Cuba Gooding Jr.) that he is in fact dead. After a brief tour of the after life with Albert, Chris is handed off to Leona (Rosalind Chao, best known as the wife of transporter chief O’Brien from Star Trek the Next Generation ). She plays a small but powerful and pivotal role in helping Chris to reconcile with the daughter he lost four years before his own death.

From here, the film muddles through a tapestry of the real and not-so-real in a way that’s intended to confuse and blur the lines between reality and what we think is real. It’s tedious and you want to follow it but you’re not sure if it’s a waste of time. The film is intended to present to us an alternative view of life after death. In this case the scenario is lavishly drawn out in a painting that is supposed to reflect some unfinished business between Chris Nielsen and the two worlds he feels he’s trapped between.

Similar to Milton’s Paradise Lost, this film argues the point of view of a living death. It also tries to bring into sharp focus, the reality that our bodies, our brains, our world are just meat that disintegrate in time freeing our spirits to soar to plains of existence where What Dreams May actually Come are the dreams we want to come true. The films tries and almost fails, to give you a philosophical view on death. The film presents truths gleaned from the Bible, psychology, and innate common sense. It proceeds to support it’s conjecture with titillating snippets of truth we all think is true but can not prove. We live or die through Chris and our victory is complete if he succeeds. Whether or not he does can only come from your point of view. The end of the film will leave you feeling satisfied or cheated depending on what you believe is possible.

Then there’s Hell. This movie makes no bones about it -- hell exist. It’s not what you’d expect though and in many, many, many ways, is more terrible than the fire and brimstone domain taught to us since Sunday School. Hell is facilitated by the ominous character, The Tracker, stubbornly played by the great Max von Sydow of "Needful Things, and 3 Days of the Condor" fame. He’s not the devil, not at all and you’ll be surprised at how and who he is. In fact while on his post death journey, Chris discovers his dead children and only gets to relate to them in ways that force PURE honesty. It’s a nice vehicle and provides a good feeling in the midst of this stuff none of us wants to think about. Anyway, the vision of hell is frightening and revealing. There are no pitch forks or horned -- whip tailed bipeds. The movie’s vision of hell is unique in that it is absent of Satan and swollen with the ranks of a molasses of misery that will have you pulling your shoes out of the goo long after you leave the theater. I can’t say more other than the shock that this vision could exist, is enough to make hell far more avoidable and any degree of fire and brimstone. In the book the film is based on, the chapter is titled The Floor Of Hell. It’s not scary as in a monster movie but I warn you, no child should see this, absolutely no child whatsoever!!! The soup of this film’s hell is so murky, so depressing, so anti-human that you would rather spend a year as a prisoner in the darkest hole of the Bastille than to spend ten minutes in the bowels of an outer darkness darker than dark where misery lays on your skin like a two hundred pound soaking wet overcoat.

Cuba Gooding Jr., did a great job with what he had to work with. This movie was not a great showcase for his talent. His color made it perfect considering the irony the writer wanted you to experience. I think this would have been a great first film for any Hollywood newcomer but casting Cuba in this film is like casting Tom Cruise as Ward Clever in "Leave It To Beaver". Again, it’s not a silly role but it didn’t require the talent of Gooding to make it believable.

The movie was adapted by ex-lawyer, Ron Bass from the book of the same name by Richard Matheson, a brilliant and often provocative novelist. You should know that Richard Matheson also wrote Bid Time Return which became one of the greatest movies of all time, Somewhere In Time staring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. Matheson is a master of the metaphysical and his talent for creating completely plausible fiction is uncanny. The book, What Dreams May Come, was written almost twenty years ago. Since it’s initial publication there are many reports of people who were afraid to die, who after reading his book completely lost their fear as they passed from this life. I suggest you read the book after you see the movie. It’s a quick read that will leave you in tears before depositing you at the doorstep of raptured joy.

The sound track by Michael Kamen was moving, haunting, and sent me to the record store immediately after I left the theater. Kamen has scored more than 70 films including most of the Die Hard and Lethal Weapons. The special effects were excellent and hauntingly photographed by Eduardo Serra (Wings of the Dove, The [1997]) in that the worlds created for the dead in no way resembled the world occupied by the living. There is a short period which Chris spends his time discovering himself in what I call watercolor land. It was artful but not extremely relevant.

So, should you see this flick? I give you a careful, guarded, unsure "maybe". Why maybe? Because this film is not for everyone. If you’re young (under 30), you’ll probably be bored silly. If you're 40 +, yup, see it. Why? Because by now you’ve gotta be asking yourself ‘what happens to me after I go?’  Even if you’re religious and you know your salvation has secured you a place in heaven, see it anyway and enjoy the spectacle of a secular, pseudo religious view of eternity. There are many scenes the hard right will not appreciate, but so what, this film has the potential to start people talking about something that desperately needs to be talked about, … death and one’s preparation for it. There is no sexuality in this film and profane language is almost non-existent.

Finally, this is a thinking person’s film. This movie has a philosophical bent to it that will leave you in quiet debate with yourself for years to come. There’s absolutely nothing superficial about this effort and you should be in a serious mood when you see it. This movie is NOT entertainment. It is a message, a powerful one that most won’t want to face. If you invest the time in seeing it, be sure to listen to all of the dialogue and carefully scrutinize every conversation between Robin Williams and whomever. Some of the best hooks in the film derives from interactions between Chris and whomever. If you miss the little things, the hooks will evade you leaving you wondering and saying to yourself, "Huh, I don’t get it."

If you saw The Devil’s Advocate surely you remember Al Pacino’s conversation with Keanu Reeves on the subject of God near the climax of the movie. In "What Dreams May Come" there are no direct interactions with God but the gravity of the sphere and operations of life after death are just as heavy. I sum up "What Dreams May Come" by saying I’m glad I saw it. I’m not sorry that I did, but I do not want to see it again. Seeing What Dreams May Come is like signing on the dotted line for your life insurance policy. You know what signing is an admission of. You hate doing it but you know you have to do it. And so it is with this film, you have to do it. In time, you will consider Matheson’s vision based on meticulous research as a comforting primer for blurring lines between life and death.

For a foretaste of one possibility of life after death, see What Dreams May Come.

See you at the movies