- Format: PAL
- Language English
- Subtitles: Dutch, Norwegian, Finnish, English, Danish, Swedish
- Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
- Number of discs: 1
- Classification: 18
- Studio: Dreamworks Home Entertainment
- DVD Release Date: 3 July 2006
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- ASIN: B0001E5TBA
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 21,626 in Film & TV (See Top 100 in Film & TV)
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Reviews
Amazon.co.uk Review
Anyone who has seen and loved Neil Jordan's The Company of Wolves should feel right at home in his offbeat psychological thriller In Dreams. A sexy, very adult take on "Little Red Riding Hood", Wolves unreeled as a series of surreal fairy tales interwoven within the heated dreams of a young girl verging on womanhood. The film's patron saints were Freud and Jung (as sifted through Jordan's wickedly fertile imagination), and the duo is very much aboard for In Dreams as well. Here's a film that takes place entirely in dreamtime, where the dark, violent fantasies of Claire Cooper (Annette Bening)--wife, mother and illustrator of children's books--play out unpoliced by superego, conscience or society. On the face of it, Claire's a clairvoyant whose mind becomes more and more possessed by child-killer Vivian Thompson (Robert Downey Jr.). Cops and shrinks refuse to take her seriously until she loses her own daughter and much, much more. Tapping into weird images of her soulmate's childhood, when he was abused by a hateful mother in a house now submerged in a nearby reservoir, Claire comes closer and closer to her gender-shifting bad boy (and his latest victim). From start to finish, In Dreams dwells in hyper-reality. Whether leeched of or drenched in colour, slipping eerily through an underwater world, rushing madly toward catastrophe--every hallucinatory shot is saturated with menace. It's the kind of potent, unresolved menace that haunts your waking day after a particularly unsettling nightmare. Watch this gorgeous film through Claire's mind, where she and her murderous doppelganger act out a terrible Oedipal drama driven by sex and jealousy. Bening and Downey deliver superb, risky performances, and Darius Khondji's cinematography, with almost every frame punctuated by blood-reds, is sensuously dreamlike. In Dreams is one of those great, flawed films that reaches for more than it ultimately achieves. --Kathleen Murphy, Amazon.com
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
In Dreams is the story of a woman who dreams through the eyes of a killer, however it isn't that simple, as the dreams involve the people she loves, and the actions the killer takes soon begin to reflect her own... If the premise sounds confusing, that's because it is, though whether or not this is a film about possession, a psychic link between characters or something else entirely is neither here nor there. It is, as one would expect from a Neil Jordan film, a beautiful enigma. Even if you don't appreciate the storyline, the visuals will surely have you hooked.
Annette Bening does a superb job of acting insane but therein lies part of the problem. It's hard to understand her character as we're never really sure if she's actually insane, possessed, driven to the brink of madness by her dreams or all three and more, and it isn't helped when her character shows signs of such madness from the off and I often found myself wondering which we're supposed to believe.
Robert Downey, Jr. does a fantastic job as the chillingly beautiful killer (decked out in a long red wig and bright green contacts) but doesn't appear (properly) on screen until the latter third of the movie, despite his character's presence throughout the films entirety, which is a shame considering how unlike his usual roles Vivian is.
Symbolism runs rampant (apples. Heaps and heaps of apples...) and a beautiful score guides you through a number of surreal flashbacks, however you will, ultimately be left wondering how exactly these people ended up sharing one another's dreams, how many of them are actually mad (even the over trusting children don't seem to be all there) and how much of the copious symbolism is a dream and which is real, but you'll have an enjoyable time doing it - the elegant visuals make sure of that.
Annette Bening does a superb job of acting insane but therein lies part of the problem. It's hard to understand her character as we're never really sure if she's actually insane, possessed, driven to the brink of madness by her dreams or all three and more, and it isn't helped when her character shows signs of such madness from the off and I often found myself wondering which we're supposed to believe.
Robert Downey, Jr. does a fantastic job as the chillingly beautiful killer (decked out in a long red wig and bright green contacts) but doesn't appear (properly) on screen until the latter third of the movie, despite his character's presence throughout the films entirety, which is a shame considering how unlike his usual roles Vivian is.
Symbolism runs rampant (apples. Heaps and heaps of apples...) and a beautiful score guides you through a number of surreal flashbacks, however you will, ultimately be left wondering how exactly these people ended up sharing one another's dreams, how many of them are actually mad (even the over trusting children don't seem to be all there) and how much of the copious symbolism is a dream and which is real, but you'll have an enjoyable time doing it - the elegant visuals make sure of that.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
A very intersting horror with lots of twists. One to watch. The story is based on a serial killer who enters the mind of an innocent woman. A good thriller/ horror. Sounds strange, but is good.
Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is an interesting psychological thriller. It requires some attention to the plot and allowance for a bit of poetic licence with the screenplay. There will be some scenes where you might say "But how could that happen" but if you just go with the flow, it is a very enjoyable film. Not super scary, but thought provoking.
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