..Gary Dretzka
..Leonard Klady
..David Poland
..Doug Pratt
..Ray Pride

The Good Night? 
Indeed

Films about dreams are extraordinarily difficult to pull off.  Listening to other people’s banal dreams is one of life’s most boring activities, so to watch a whole movie about them can be similarly trying.  But when done well, a film that delves into the enigma of dreams can be one of the most transporting experiences in cinema and one that helps to ground you back to reality.  Dream sequences in movies, though, often have a habit of existing without a purpose; they don’t really tell us very much about a character except in certain films.  Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound, for example, with its marvelous Dali-inspired dream sequence is surely one of the best since we actually unravel all of the strange details through the help of a psychiatrist who can aid the viewer’s understanding of the dream.  But we shouldn’t always need help to decipher what a dream means in a movie.

One of my absolute favorite films is Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, which not only deals with the majesty – and tragedy – of dreams, but also about bureaucracy and the grey future that will surely exist if our dreams are beaten out of us.  Blue Velvet, another one of my favorite films, seems to suggest that the perfection of suburbia is just a dream and that underneath that veneer, it is crawling with insects literally and figuratively.

More recently, however, there was Michel Gondry’s Science of Sleep that dealt with dreaming in a more direct fashion.  The film starred Gael Garcia Bernal, one of our finest actors, as a young man who feels more connected to his dreams than he does to reality.  I had been extremely excited for this film when it first came out, it seemed the perfect marriage of director to material.  After all, this was the filmmaker who had brought Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to life so gloriously, so surely he would use his considerable talents to help elucidate the mystery of dreams, right?

Unfortunately, I found Science of Sleep to be a beautiful failure.  I thought its heart was in the right place and the dream sequences were thrilling to look at, but there was a lack of emotion.  There wasn’t enough “reality” in this film about dreams; it seemed like we spent more time in the main character’s dream than we did in his life.  And often his dreams didn’t signify very much.  I wanted to connect with the film, but I found myself too bored by Bernal’s dreams to really care what they might be saying about his life.  It was like Gondry was talking to me about the dream he had last night and halfway through, I was drifting off.

So it was with a bit of trepidation and a lot of hope that I sat down to watch The Good Night, the directorial debut of Jake Paltrow.  Yes, he is the brother of Gwyneth Paltrow (one of the stars of the film), but he has certainly made a name for himself with this film which was everything that I was hoping for in Science of Sleep.  It is one of the most confident debuts that I have seen so far this year.

The story follows Gary (Martin Freeman), a washed-up musician who is stuck in a job writing jingles for commercials, a job that he detests.  He comes home to his girlfriend Dora (Gwyneth Paltrow) who spends most of her time yelling at him or chiding him for something that he probably did wrong.  But they always tell each other “I love you” after turning out the light and going to sleep.  And is there, while he is asleep, that Gary falls in love with Anna (Penelope Cruz) who caters to his every whim in his dreams; it is enough to make Gary want to sleep more than stay awake.  With the help of his best friend Paul (Simon Pegg), Gary seeks out a dream guru (Danny DeVito) to help him control his dreams. 

The first thing that many people will think when seeing the names Martin Freeman (from the original British version of The Office) and Simon Pegg (of Shaun of the Dead) is that this film must be a comedy.  It is not.  Granted, there are some funny little moments in this film and it’s not exactly a dark movie, but this not a comedy.  Truthfully, I don’t know that there is a genre that this film can fit into because it straddles so many lines.  There is some romance, sure, but it’s not really a romantic movie.  There are some poignant moments, but this is not really a dramatic film.  This is why I’m concerned the film won’t find an audience and it truly deserves to find one. 

The first twenty minutes or so are a bit on the boring side, but I urge you to stick with the film once you’ve sat down because it’s all part of the plan.  I thought I hated the film until halfway through when I figured out what Jake Paltrow was doing and it made me realize that he is truly a filmmaker to watch; to have the confidence to spend the first twenty minutes of your film showing how dull life can be is really an extraordinary thing, especially because it winds up working in the film’s favor at the end.  It’s a sign of a really talented filmmaker when you can turn what seems like a shortcoming into an advantage in the span of ninety minutes.  The dream sequences in this film could not be more different than the ones in Science of Sleep; there are no giant hands or cardboard houses.  Instead, Paltrow choose to shoot his dream sequences with soft lighting and frames them like paintings and it’s almost never a question of whether or not Gary is awake or sleeping.

The acting is aces across the board, with special mention going to Danny DeVito who nearly steals the picture.  Martin Freeman is turning into a special leading man because he doesn’t seem to care about having showy moments; he plays the straight man in this film while everyone else gets to play a bit over the top, but he’s always the most interesting character on the screen.  In most of her recent films, I’ve found Gwyneth Paltrow to be a bit grating, but here she is purposely irritating and yet this is her most endearing role in years; she feels real.  Penelope Cruz is beautiful and wonderful and after Volver, she seems to be on a creative roll.

Overall, The Good Night is probably not a film that will make my year-end top ten list, but it’s one of the better times I’ve had at the movies lately and it doesn’t pander to the audience.  It entertains effortlessly while also not insulting the viewer’s intelligence.  This is a bedtime story for adults, one that tells us more about our own reality by examining someone else’s dreams.

- Noah Forrest
October 2, 2007

Other columns by Noah Forrest
09.27.07 - Cleaning House
09.20.07 - Top 10 To Date
09.13.07 - Film Vs Television
08.31.07 - Halloween Review
08.28.07 - Who Is The Next Scorsese?
08.21.07 - Fall Preview
08.14.07 - The Horrific State Of The Horror Film
08.10.07 - Reservations About Catherine Zeta-Jones
08.07.07 - Saving Steven Spielberg
07.30.07 - Skinheads in the Cinema & This Is England
07.28.07 - Siena Miller: Good or Evil?
07.26.07 - The Frenzy on the Wall

Noah Forrest is a 24 year old aspiring writer/filmmaker in New York City.

The opinions expressed in these columns are the writers and do not neccessarily reflect the opinions of Movie City News or any of its editors or other contributors.

.