Robert Horton is a Scarecrow board member and a longtime film critic. This series of "critic's notes" is chance to highlight worthy films playing locally and connect them to the riches of Scarecrow's collection.
Scarecrow Academy's "Election Year: Politics on Film" semester continues online tomorrow (Saturday March 30) with a discussion of Alan J. Pakula's All the President's Men, a stone classic of American film. Pakula is known for his 70s suspense films, but he made other notable and/or fascinating movies along the way, including Sophie's Choice. Thinking about his work led me to one of his head-scratching projects from the 80s, Dream Lover, a psychological thriller that sounds as though it probably had some post-production meddling going on. It came from the heyday of Kristy McNichol, featured then-upcoming leading men (Ben Masters, who had been good in Key Exchange, and Paul Shenar), and it's about dreams, a subject I like. I'd like to see this one again; naturally, Scarecrow has it. Here's my puzzled review, originally published in The Herald in 1986.
Dream Lover is a bewilderingly disjointed film from director Alan J. Pakula, who during the 1970s made a series of superb thrillers – Klute, The Parallax View, All the President’s Men – that were anything but disjointed.
Here, Pakula is playing games with the nature of dreams and reality, and the confusion of the film’s main character in distinguishing the two. That would seem to be right up Pakula’s alley (especially aided by cinematographer Sven Nykvist), since his earlier films often had the quality of waking nightmares. But Jon Boorstin’s screenplay goes in so many different directions, Pakula is not able to really get under our skin with the idea.
It’s about a girl (Kristy McNichol) who clearly has some problems with her dominating father (Paul Shenar). He just barely allows her to move to Greenwich Village to take part in a summer jazz workshop playing flute. One night a man breaks into her apartment and threatens her. Before he can hurt her, she gets the upper hand, grabs his knife, and stabs him.
This event is understandably traumatizing, and it sets off a series of nightmares in which she relives the attack. Seeking relief, she visits a sleep research center, and meets a clinician (Ben Masters) who invites her to experiment with different forms of sleep therapy.
One of these forms is a drug that allows the dreamer to physically act out the dream. Ah, you can see this one coming – when McNichol starts dreaming her violent dreams again, this is going to lead to trouble.
The strangest thing about Dream Lover is its lurching, stop-and-go momentum. It’s almost impossible to tell where the film is headed, which is not necessarily a bad sign, until the suspense of the final few minutes. Masters’ character is not introduced until almost halfway through the film, and the other characters disappear for lengthy spells while the sleep experiments are going on. It’s an oddly slack narrative, especially from Pakula, who could inform every moment of a film such as All the President’s Men with such clockwork tension. Pakula plays with a few perverse ideas here, particularly in the relationship with the father and daughter, and with the fact that all the men in McNichol’s life (all played by relatively unknown actors) physically resemble each other.
McNichol, who still looks about 15 years old, is both miscast and rather good. She’s so small and bland-looking that it’s difficult for her to carry an entire film such as this and yet, although she overdoes it a few times, she does possess some powerful emotional resources. The role calls for her to cry and shout a lot, and she’s up to the demands.
As a comeback film for McNichol, Dream Lover is a problematic release. In fact, it’s had its problems getting released at all, having had an early sneak preview almost a year ago in Seattle.
It’s an accessible enough film to get regular play. It’s just very disappointing, considering the talent behind the project.
March 29, 2024
