What Dreams May Come (film)
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| What Dreams May Come | |
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 DVD cover for What Dreams May Come |
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| Directed by | Vincent Ward |
| Produced by | Stephen Deutsch, Barnet Bain |
| Written by | Richard Matheson (novel), Ronald Bass (screenplay) |
| Starring | Robin Williams Cuba Gooding Jr Annabella Sciorra |
| Distributed by | PolyGram |
| Release date(s) | October 2, 1998 |
| Running time | 113 min |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Budget | US$85 million |
| IMDb profile | |
What Dreams May Come is a 1998 dramatic film, starring Robin Williams, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Annabella Sciorra. The movie is based on the 1978 novel of the same name by Richard Matheson, and was directed by Vincent Ward. The title comes from a famous line in Hamlet's soliloquy in Act 3, scene 1 (To be, or not to be), specifically, "For in that sleep of death what dreams may come / When we have shuffled off this mortal coil." Scenes in the movie, as well as the plot outline in the novel, contain several allegorical references to Dante Alighieri's 1308 epic poem The Divine Comedy.
The movie received mixed reaction from critics and mediocre box office returns, but went on to win an Academy Award for its visual effects. It was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Art Direction.
The film was released by PolyGram Filmed Entertainment. It is one of the few movies to be shot largely on Fuji Velvia film, known among landscape photographers for its vivid color reproduction.[1]
Contents |
[edit] Primary Cast
- Robin Williams : Chris Nielsen
- Annabella Sciorra : Annie Collins-Nielsen
- Cuba Gooding Jr. : Albert Lewis and Ian Nielsen
- Max von Sydow : The Tracker
- Jessica Brooks Grant : Marie Nielsen
- Josh Paddock : Ian Nielsen
- Rosalind Chao : Leona and Marie Nielsen
[edit] Plot summary
The movie opens with Chris and Annie's meeting on a lake near Switzerland. The viewer is then treated to a quick montage describing their courtship and marriage. Chris's work is as a pediatrician at a local clinic, while Annie runs an art gallery.
When Chris's son and daughter are killed in a car accident, Annie becomes mentally unstable. She attempts suicide by cutting her wrists, and enters a mental hospital. Chris helps her the best he can, and finally she recovers. However, on the couple's Double D anniversary (which marks Annie's Decision about not getting Divorced), Chris is killed in yet another car accident.
Chris experiences life after death, although it takes him a while to accept that it's more than a dream. A man named Albert (Gooding) guides him through his grief and confusion, and then shows him the beauty of the heavenly realm. At first, Chris believes Albert to be his friend and mentor from his medical residency, whom he calls "Doc." Albert guides Chris to an understanding of his condition, but even he is surprised when a glorious purple tree appears in Chris's personal section of heaven. It turns out that the tree matches a new painting of Annie's; the two are soul-mates, and anything she paints appears in Chris's heaven. Unfortunately, Annie destroys the painting in a fit of despair, and the beautiful tree withers.
After getting adjusted to the spirit world, Chris meets a beautiful Asian woman who shows him a children's realm in heaven. She asks Chris to share a memory with her, and he tells her about teaching his daughter, Marie, to play chess. In turn, she explains that she took the form of a stewardess because her father once admired that stewardess' special beauty. Suddenly, Chris recognizes their location as a diorama his daughter loved in life, and she reveals she is Marie. On Earth, she was tomboyish and wanted to look more feminine when she grew up. In the Heaven of What Dreams May Come, a person is able to achieve their lifelong desires, and appear however they wish.
As this is happening, Annie's depression deepens, and in her torment, she takes poison. Albert sadly breaks the news to Chris of his wife's death. At first Chris is able to find joy in the terrible news, as he thinks that his wife is now free from her emotional pain on Earth and that he can soon meet her in the afterlife. His hope quickly turns to anger when Albert explains the reality of the situation. Suicides are trapped in Hell by their own despair. Chris rebels against this, but Albert claims there is no judgment, no laws; it is simply the nature of suicides. This is a deliberate reference to Dante Alighieri's Inferno cantica, where the seventh level of Hell is reserved for sins of violence -- including violence against oneself. The punishment for those who commit suicide in Dante's Inferno is to spend eternity in the body of a tree.
Chris boldly resolves to rescue his wife. Albert tries to persuade Chris to give up the painful and impossible quest. According to him, no one has ever brought a suicide out of Hell. However, Chris is undaunted, and Albert agrees to help find Chris a "tracker", played by Max von Sydow. A tracker is a soul who can help find other souls; he provides Chris spiritual guidance to help him "tune in" to Annie's presence.
The group then descends into Hell. The damned are shown acting out their sins, failures, and fears over and over again, without any hope of understanding or breaking free of their misery. Chris attempts to focus his concentration on Annie, but finds himself instead remembering his son, Ian. The brilliant and meticulous Chris had always found it difficult not to show disappointment in his less-gifted son, and in a rain-swept woods one day, they had it out. Despite their differences, though, Chris and Ian achieved a resolution that day, with Chris telling his son, "If I was going through fucking HELL, I'd only want one person in the whole goddamn world by my side."
Chris snaps out of his memories when he sees Albert, searching for Annie, about to risk approaching a dangerous-looking group of the damned. Suddenly, Chris sees through the disguise, and snatches "Albert" back, calling him "Ian". When he asks his son why he chose to appear as Albert, he replies that he was the only authority figure that Chris would ever listen to. Chris is impressed by his son, but the Tracker demands that Ian return to Heaven, while he and Chris carry on. In parting, Ian instructs Chris to think about what happened when he and Marie died, and what Chris said to bring Annie back from her mental crisis.
In the topsy-turvy ruins, Chris finds a field full of the faces of the damned, eternally moaning and muttering to themselves. Scenes such as these are direct representations of Dante's Inferno, and the nine stages of hell reserved for sins of varying degrees. One of the people Chris finds claims to be his father, but it seems to be a case of mistaken identity. Suddenly, he spies Annie's face, but running towards her, the ground crumbles beneath his feet, and Chris falls into a vast, upside-down cathedral. At the bottom of it is a twisted mirror-image of their home. The Tracker is surprised that Chris found her; she's inside. However, he warns Chris that if he stays with her for more than several minutes, he may become permanently trapped as well. Before he enters, though, the Tracker reveals a final secret: he is Albert, who has been waiting for many years to do Chris a favor.
When Chris enters the house, he finds that Annie doesn't recognize him. Pale, gaunt, and miserable, she isn't fully aware that she's dead. He talks to her gently, pretending to be a neighbor, before he is able to gain enough of her trust to reach her for a moment. In guilt and disbelief, Annie screams and pushes him away, and a saddened Chris realizes he has failed. He tells his insane wife a last good-bye, and leaves the house. The Tracker consoles him, and Chris tells him he has given up.
"But," he adds, "Not the way you think."
He asks the Tracker to give his love to his children, and re-enters the house. Taking his wife's hand, he tells her he won't leave her. He's decided to stay forever in Hell and join her in madness rather than leave her again. Somehow, this sacrifice reaches Annie when nothing else can, and she and Chris pull each other out of the miasma of Hell, narrowly escaping.
Chris and Annie are reunited with their children, but Chris is dissatisfied. He inspires Annie to join him in reincarnation, so they can experience the joy of meeting and falling in love all over again.
In a longer, alternative ending (available on the special edition DVD) the reincarnation is not a choice, but is part of the natural order. Chris and Annie will meet again in their new lives, but Annie must atone for killing herself - her new incarnation will die young, and Chris will spend the remainder of his new life as a widower before the two are once again reunited in Heaven. The film then goes to India where a woman is giving birth to a little girl, which presumably is Annie. The alternative ending, which is actually the one from the novel, was left roughly edited and unfinished.
[edit] Release
What Dreams May Come had an $85 million budget, according to boxofficemojo.com. It opened on October 28, 1998 in the United States on 2,526. The opening weekend gross was $15,833,592, 28.6% of its ultimate $55,382,927 domestic intake. International grosses are unavailable, but according to the director's commentary, it smashed Italy's opening weekend records.
[edit] Trivia
- Part of the "Hell" sequence was filmed on the decrepit and rusted hulk of the Essex class aircraft carrier USS Oriskany (CV-34). The ship was later sunk to make an artificial reef on May 17, 2006.
- Famed Italian composer Ennio Morricone orignially wrote and recorded a score for the film. After editorial changes were made, his score was discarded, and replaced with one composed by Michael Kamen.
- German director Werner Herzog made a cameo appearance as one of the damned.
