What Dreams May Come (1998)
First and foremost this movie is
visually stunning, I will say that immediately. Usually when a movie
looks this good the story doesn't quite live up in the same way. Not
here, this movie will rip your fucking heart out and show it to you
while it's still beating.
What amazes me is the amount of people
I've talked to over years that have never seen this film. I don't
know how this is possible because it hits across so many lines all at
the same time. Any how.... on to my review.
The story centers around Chris Nielsen
(played by Robin Williams) and his life, meeting his perfect wife,
having children, building a home together, losing his children,
losing his life and what comes after. Chris is a doctor that runs
into the woman of his dreams by accident while traveling. Later we
are shown that he is a doctor and she works for a museum and paints.
They get married, have kids and build that perfect but all to busy
life together. Then we here Chris voice over as his kids drive away
“That was the last time we saw our children alive” and this is
where the movie starts to really become what it is.
This movie is about death. Losing the
ones we love and how we deal with it. What happens after we die. How
those we love can be destroyed by our passing. It doesn't do all this
in one long shot, there are flashbacks perfectly timed throughout the
movie giving us all these glimpses of how the death of their children
almost tore Chris and his wife Annie (Annabella Sciorra) apart. What
happens to her once he is gone as well.
This movie is about life. Between all
the death and terrible consequences of it we are also shown the life
of those involved. The love they shared and how much they meant to
each other. Coming into understandings of each individual, husband to
wife, parent to child. Again this is scattered throughout the movie
in a series of flashbacks that set the pace throughout.
This movie is about heaven and hell without beating us in the head with angels and demons. Mentioning
only a couple of times the idea that there may be a God watching. It
puts everything on a much more personal level than any other movie
I've seen.
Chris builds his own heaven based
around the paintings that his wife had done. Their meeting and
hopeful future. With the help of his guide Albert (Cuba Gooding Jr.)
on how to make what you want become a reality along with coming to
terms with his own death. Later he is helped by Leona (Rosalind Chao)
with dealing with the personal heavens of others.
But when the unthinkable happens Chris
decides to travel across hell itself and will not be talked out of it
by Albert who eventually decides to come with and recruiting a guide
named The Tracker (Max von Sydow). Traversing the nightmare
landscapes and littered with dangerous obstacles they finally reach
their destination and we see that not only do people make their own
slice of heaven, but they can create their own hell as well.
Now onto the visuals. Stunning is best
work I can find to describe it. Everything has it's specific look
from Chris' heaven being built out of paint and slowly becoming more
solid. To the childs dream that is Leona's personal place. The
library where we find the tracker gives us much foreboding and it
helps tell you so much about the character. Then hell itself will
leave you wide eyed and staring, especially that final personal hell
that we venture to in the end. One that feels like we could end up
there ourselves on our worst days.
Directed by Vincent Ward who does an
outstanding job. So much so that I forgive him writing Alien 3, and
trust me that's a big leap for me. Written by Ronald Bass who adapted
it from a book by Richard Matheson. I cannot recommend this movie
enough to anyone that has an ounce of human empathy or is a parent
themselves. It is a hard movie to watch as bad things happen to good
people with nobody at fault and nobody to blame. But in the end we
find that the entire journey, including that after death, is what
really matters.
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