What Dreams May Come (film)

Infobox Film
name = What Dreams May Come


caption = Theatrical release poster
director = Vincent Ward
producer = Stephen Deutsch
Barnet Bain
writer = Richard Matheson (novel)
Ronald Bass (screenplay)
starring = Robin Williams
Cuba Gooding Jr
Annabella Sciorra
music = Michael Kamen
cinematography = Eduardo Serra
editing = David Brenner
distributor = PolyGram
released = October 2, 1998
runtime = 113 min
country = United States
language = English
budget = US$85 million
amg_id = 1:172903
imdb_id = 0120889

"What Dreams May Come" is a 1998 dramatic film, starring Robin Williams, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Annabella Sciorra. The movie is based on the eponymous 1978 novel by Richard Matheson, and was directed by Vincent Ward. The title is taken from a line in Hamlet's "To be, or not to be" soliloquy.

Overview

After being killed in a car accident, Chris Nielsen (Williams) goes to an afterlife derived from his wife's paintings. Despite the paradise he now inhabits he is unhappy without his wife Annie (Sciorra). When Annie commits suicide following Chris' death she is sent to hell. Adamant that they belong together, Chris commences a quest to rescue her, in the process discovering a number of characters from his past.

Cast

*Robin Williams: Chris Nielsen
*Annabella Sciorra: Annie Collins-Nielsen
*Cuba Gooding Jr.: Albert Lewis/Ian Nielsen
*Max von Sydow: The Tracker/Albert Lewis
*Jessica Brooks Grant: Marie Nielsen
*Josh Paddock: Ian Nielsen
*Rosalind Chao: Leona/Marie Nielsen
*Lucinda Jenney: Mrs. Jacobs
*Maggie McCarthy: Stacey Jacobs

Plot summary

After meeting in Switzerland, Chris and Annie marry, having two children: Ian (Josh Paddock) and Marie (Rosalind Chao).

Years later, after Ian and Marie are killed in a car accident, Annie becomes mentally unstable and attempts suicide. She is institutionalized, and although the couple nearly divorce as a result, she eventually recovers. However, on the couple's "Double-D" anniversary (the day the couple decided not to divorce) Chris is involved in a car accident, dying a short time later.

Chris awakes in the afterlife, adjusting to his new environment with the guidance of a man named Albert (Cuba Gooding Jr.), whom Chris believes to be his friend and mentor from his medical residency. Both are surprised when a Blue Jacaranda tree appears in Chris's personal section of Heaven, which matches a tree in a new painting of Annie's. Albert indicates the couple are soul mates, receptive to each other's thoughts even after death.

Later, Chris meets a woman named Leona who shows him a children's realm in heaven. Chris recognizes her as Marie after realizing the location is a diorama she loved in life, and Leona explaining that she took the form of a stewardess because her father once admired a beautiful stewardess.

In parallel to this, Annie, distraught at the loss of her family, takes poison and dies. Albert breaks the news to Chris, whose initial relief that her suffering is over, quickly becomes anger when he learns that suicides are sent to hell. Albert claims no judgment has been made against her; it is simply the nature of suicides. This is a reference to Dante's Inferno, where the seventh level of Hell is reserved for sins of violence — including violence against oneself.

Chris is adamant that he will rescue Annie from Hell, despite Albert's insistence that no one has ever succeeded in doing so. Chris is undaunted, and Albert eventually agrees to find Chris a "Tracker" to help find Annie's soul.

Journeying to Hell and encountering hundreds of damned souls (one of which is a cameo by German director Werner Herzog) Chris finds himself recalling memories of his son, Ian. Chris had been disappointed with Ian's underachievement but eventually, after an earnest conversation, told him "if I was going through fucking "hell", I'd only want one person in the whole goddamn world by my side." Seeing Albert about to confront a violent group of damned, Chris realizes Albert is actually Ian. Ian explains that he chose to appear as Albert because he was the only person Chris would ever listen to. Ian returns to Heaven, while Chris and the Tracker continue the search.

Arriving at what the Tracker calls their "private deck", Chris finds a field full of the faces of the damned (a further reference to Dante's Inferno). Chris sees Annie's face but as he runs towards her, the ground gives way and he falls into a vast, upside-down cathedral. Chris recognizes his and Annie's house at the bottom. The Tracker warns Chris that if he stays with Annie for more than a few minutes, he may become permanently trapped too. The Tracker then reveals that "he" is Albert, who has been waiting for many years to do Chris a favor.

Chris enters the house to find Annie pale and withdrawn. Chris is unable to make Annie recognize him and decides to "give up," and join Annie forever, even if she will never know who he is. This is the antithesis of his behavior when Annie was institutionalized (which was to ask for a divorce, since he was unable to join in her grief for their children), at which Annie recognizes Chris and the two escape heaven.

Chris and Annie are reunited with their children, but Chris suggests being reincarnated, so the pair can experience meeting and falling in love again. The film ends with Chris and Annie meeting as young children, in a relatively-similar way to their original meeting. The film ends with a repetition of the opening line by Chris: "When I was young, I met this beautiful girl by a lake."

Alternate Ending

The special edition DVD shows an alternate ending — which is the ending from the novel — in which the reincarnation is not a choice, but 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 Sri Lanka where a woman is giving birth to a little girl, which presumably is Annie. This ending was left roughly edited and unfinished.

Differences from the novel

The novel has significant differences from the film, in both its plot and its vision of the afterlife. Its approach to the love story is considerably less sentimental, and its tone more scientific than fantastic.

There are far more references to Theosophical, New Age and paranormal beliefs. Indeed, the author Richard Matheson claims in an introductory note that only the characters are fictional, and that almost everything else is based on research (the book contains an extensive bibliography). Story elements that do not show up in the film include astral projection, telepathy, a séance, and the term "Summerland" (the name for a simplified Heaven in Theosophy, and for Heaven in general in earth-based religions such as Wicca).

The details of Chris's life on Earth also differ strongly in the novel. Only Chris and his wife (called Ann) die. Their children, who are grownups rather than youngsters, remain alive, as minor characters. Albert and Leona are exactly the people they appear to be, and the character played by Max Von Sydow does not appear in the book at all. Albert is Chris's cousin and not African American as in the film, while Leona's ethnicity is not divulged. Chris and Ann are rural, country types rather than the urbanites portrayed in the film, and he is not a pediatrician, nor is she a painter. He's a Hollywood screenwriter, and she has a variety of jobs.

The afterlife imagery is based on natural scenery rather than paintings. The Heavenly environment doesn't automatically mold itself to people's thoughts, as it does in the film; some practice and expertise is required to build things. There is more explanation of how the afterlife works, and we get more of a sense that a functioning human society shares the space. The novel's depiction of Hell is considerably more violent than in the film. Chris finds it difficult to move, breathe, or even see, and he suffers physical torture at the hands of some of the inhabitants. He does not encounter ships, thunderstorms, fire, or the sea of human faces that he must walk upon in the film. Instead, he and Albert climb across craggy cliffs and encounter such sights as a swarm of insects that attack people's bodies.

Ann is consigned to Hell for only twenty-four years, not eternity. Chris's meeting with Ann in her private Hell is much longer and more complex than in the film. At the end, which resembles an alternate version of the film but not the standard version, she escapes from Hell by being reincarnated, because she is not ready for Heaven.

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 screens. 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.

Reception

The movie grossed in excess of US $200 million in (all territories/media) and won an Academy Award for its visual effects. It was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Art Direction, and won the Art Directors Guild Award for Excellence in Production Design.

Trivia

*It is one of the few movies to be shot largely on Fuji Velvia film, known among landscape photographers for its vivid color reproduction. [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120889/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. [http://articles.latimes.com/2006/may/10/nation/na-oriskany10]

*Annette Bening was originally cast to play Annie, but extracted herself from the role in advance of production for personal reasons. [http://www.aintitcool.com/node/1961]

*Italian composer Ennio Morricone originally 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. [http://users.telenet.be/soundtrack-fm/Reviews/Ennio_Morricone/what_dreams/what_dreams.htm]

*The original prints of the film were lost a fire at Universal Studios' backlot on June 1, 2008. A worldwide search was launched for a copy, which was subsequently found in Europe. [http://thestudiotour.com/ush/index.shtml]

External links

*
*
*
* [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19981002/REVIEWS/810020306/1023 Roger Ebert Review]