Dream Lover

[1986, Movie]

Dream Lover: Review

McNichol is an aspiring jazz flutist who has recently moved into a New York apartment and joined a respected ensemble. Late one night she is attacked in her apartment by an intruder who tries to rape her before she fatally stabs him in the back. Now she is tormented nightly by a recurring dream of the incident. When she meets Masters, a dream researcher, she hopes that her nightmarish evenings will abate, but they only get worse. She has been turned into Masters' guinea pig. DREAM LOVER is astonishing in its ineptitude and laughable in its supposedly scientific approach. Rather than use his imagination in presenting McNichol's dreams cinematically, director Pakula chooses to give his audience irrelevant mumbo-jumbo about the nature of dream research. As a result of his misguided direction, nothing happens in the film. When the scientific explanations aren't padding the length, the inexorable repetition of the dream scene is. McNichol, who has proven that she can act if directed well, is given nothing to do. The only worthwhile aspect of the entire project is the photography of Nykvist.