Dreamland

I've been really down on independent movies lately for their tedious pace and bland characters. However in Dreamland, while we do have a slow pace so common in independent movies, the characters here a very interesting to watch and there is an emotional story in the movie.

In the movie, we have an eighteen year old high school graduate whose life revolves around taking care of her alcoholic father and her best friend diagnosed with MS. She has a chance to leave the trailer park for college but feels that she would be selfish to move away from the people that depend on her. She even lets her best friend date the new guy in town even though she has feelings for him. We see that it is her father and her friend who are actually being the selfish ones for for being too dependent on her kindness and not letting her move on with her life.

The performances here are outstanding and the characters are interesting especially John Corbett and Gina Gershon in a bit role. But I do have to agree with some reviewers here that Justin Long was miscast as the basketball prospect/ love interest. It would have been more believable if he were a track star and not a basketball star.

Dreamland is a film about hopes and dreams, fear and regret. Audrey and her father Henry live in a trailer park after Henry's wife has passed away. Henry is a drunk and deathly afraid of physically leaving the trailer park, where he has lived for the past several years. Calista, Audrey's best friend, is a beautiful, aspiring Miss America who has MS, counting the days until she dies. Dreamland explores a common theme of breaking personal boundaries (real or perceived) and having to face your own truth. It works because the context is exquisitely executed. The imagery is extremely well done, and Kelli Garner's performance, a hint of Marilyn Monroe, is the most difficult and deserves recognition. John Corbett's character does push his limits but he does a fine job. Gina Gershon has a bit part but does it well. The main flaw is the ending, and I wish they would have taken a more risqué approach rather than wrapping everything up in a nice bow.

This is an introspective film about a young girl named Audrey. Her mother has died, her father is agoraphobic, and her best friend is struggling with her health as well. They live in a beautiful area of New Mexico, but their home is a dismal trailer park. Audrey would like to escape this dead end life but sees no way out since most of the people she loves depend on her. This movie is about her (and their) journey to discover how they can escape their ruts.

The film is well made; the characters are all well developed, and Agnes Bruckner, John Corbett (in a big departure from his usual persona) and Justin Long (among others!!) all do a great job portraying their respective characters.

Unfortunately, this film won't reach a wide audience, but for what it's worth, I enjoyed it.

This is cliché-ridden nonsense not worth the time of day. Why even bother making a movie when the story is almost non-existent and the characters are thin retreads from a thousand other films? What on earth convinced a fine performer like Gina Gershon to take such a tiny, nothing role? Why on earth would the filmmakers hire a short and petite actor like Justin Long in the role of a potentially hot college basketball prospect? And how could the director not realize that exposing Kelli Garner's enormous chest in bikinis and plunging necklines would take attention away from everything else in her scenes? Regardless, nothing could cure this film from its essential ailment of triteness. C'mon, a coming-of-age love triangle? The intertwining lives of struggling dreamers in a small community? Ugh, Sundance/IFC Storyline Class 101. In fact, a small town young-people-in-love-triangle is as old as silent movies. Even getting past that, the filmmakers don't even have enough courage to make the characters tougher. They're all so soft, especially Corbett as the disconsolate alcoholic father. He's supposed to be such a handful that Agnes Bruckner's character feels the need to take care of him rather than go off to college, but he's such a mild drunk (no wild jags, no barking at the moon, no violence, no buried in his own vomit, etc.) and written without any clinging neediness for his daughter, that we never get any sense that he needs her around as his keeper. And when Garner needs watching over later in the film, Corbett drops the emotional burnout routine in thirty seconds flat and comes to her aid with barely a ripple of personal struggle. We also simply get told that Bruckner is brilliant and in demand as a potential college student with acceptances pouring in the mail, even though she lives out in the middle of nowhere in a trailer park. And with Long going back to college and Bruckner's nerdy work buddy going off to college, it seems Dreamland could create its own fraternity. Then there's poor Kelli Garner stuck with the cliché "sick-girl" role straight out of the Hallmark Channel (although there's no Sally Field-type mom/aunt rubbing her forehead). Sure she's got MS, and is supposed to be doomed, and even gets to be in the climactic accident, but she's filmed in swimwear and other revealing outfits and never looks less than quite healthy and voluptuous. And she gets to fool around with various absurd gimmicks to relieve her MS, including bee swarms and clutching live power lines. It's such nonsense that I half expected the filmmakers to take it to its ultimate combination at the finish -- by having Garner clutch a power line while in the middle of a bee swarm while wearing a bikini (and maybe a tin foil hat, too). Wait, perhaps I'm all wrong: could this film just be a bad joke played on the audience? You can only hope.

Last night I was in the mood for a movie - any movie - and so I popped "Dreamland" out of the unseen stack of my DVD collection.

I did not expect all too much, so I was very pleasantly surprised to find out that it was actually very good.

The first thing I noticed was the beautiful photography. There are some really breathtaking shots, at least if you watch it on a big enough screen.

Secondly the story, while slow paced, is kinda nice and comes in several layers. Sort of a "feelgood-movie", even if all of the characters have their problems throughout the movie.

The acting was pretty good, but especially John Corbett blew me away. No more nice guy like in Sex and the City or the Greek Wedding. Instead he sometimes reminded me of Jeff Bridges in "The Big Lebowski". Which in fact is a big compliment, coming from a guy who watched Lebowski for Idontknow how many times.

Definitely a well-earned eight on my scale!