Dream Team review
Let’s try to figure out what this is together, shall we?
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Dream Team opens at Metrograph NYC on November 15th.
Dream Team
Directed by Whitney Horn and Lev Kalman
Written by Whitney Horn and Lev Kalman
Starring Isabelle Barbier, Esther Garrel, Avalon Greenberg Call, Alex Zhang Hungtai, Minh T Mia and John Fell Ryan
Dream Team Review
Where do you want to start with Dream Team? Oh…that’s right. You probably haven’t seen it yet. That’s why you’re here. Well, I have seen Dream Team and I still feel like we may be on equal footing on this one. I can tell you what it’s been described as. “An absurdist homage to 90’s basic cable TV thrillers”. That’s…an attempt. I can see some of that in the DNA of the movie. I’ve also seen it described as a “trippy, surreal, sci-fi/comedy”. That might be better. “post-modern, soft-core fever dream” has also been thrown around. Not sure about all that…though “fever dream” sounds close to right. What I can’t tell you with much conviction is what Dream Team IS. You’ll have to figure that part out for yourself.
The story, as one exists, revolves around killer coral. I’m going to say that again…as much for my benefit as yours. The story is about killer coral. Coral, the invertebrate animal found on the ocean floor, have begun killing people. They have started expelling deadly neon colored gas. Don’t worry…if you have any questions about coral, those questions will be answered by Dream Team. Dr. Veronica Beef will be giving a long dissertation on the subject. A discussion that ends up in a hot tub for reasons only writer/directors Whitney Horn and Lev Kalman may fully understand.
A pair of Interpol agents, No St. Aubergine (Esther Garrel) and Chase National (Alex Zhang Hungtai) are dispatched to investigate. That’s roughly as far as I can get into explaining the plot of Dream Team. I can tell you that it is presented as an episodic story. Seven chapters complete with opening titles await. Titles like Doppelgangbang, Ashes to Asses and Coral Me Bad. If I tell you that these episodes have a loose structure and relationship to each other…I’ll be understating the matter. Dream Team spends about as much time presenting what appears to be a series of screensavers as it does threading together a cohesive story.
Dream Team sometimes feels like Twin Peaks as a pure comedy. It seems to share the same disdain for the episodic format that it’s chosen to use as Lynch had for television as a whole. There are moments and actions that are purposely weird for the sake of weird. We briefly follow an invisible man around…an idea Lynch is probably kicking himself from missing out on back in 1990. More importantly, it presents these moments to free the story from any kind of logic traps. Anything can happen here. Dream Team doesn’t take place on this plain of reality. It takes place on television. Specifically, late 90’s basic cable.
That set-up comes with certain expectations. Anyone who watched Silk Stalkings on USA probably has at least a basic understanding of what the basic cable erotic thriller TV show is. I came into Dream Team anticipating a parody of sorts. Or, perhaps, a faithful recreation that would serve as a comedic platform of its own. What I got was much, much weirder. At times, Dream Team is clearly subverting those expectations. At times, Dream Team feels like its subverting expectations that no one had to begin with.
What Dream Team does best is to offer you nothing you expect. I’m not convinced that it adds up to anything remotely coherent. I’m very convinced that it is by design. To what end it does so is up to you. What I can tell you is that Dream Team makes increasingly fascinating choices (or lack of choices). It exists in its own universe of actions and understanding. A movie that should come with an audio commentary explaining the thought process behind its creation…if not explanations for what that creation is.
Dream Team lacks purpose and form…on purpose because that is its form. Which is a way of saying that you should probably seek it out. Maybe you’ll connect with it in a way that was intended. Maybe you’ll connect with it in a way that wasn’t. You might just see a meaningless screensaver. Which…actually is a lot like 90’s basic cable TV thrillers now that I think about it.
Scare Value
Dream Team is unabashedly weird. I couldn’t help but feel so far detached from its intent that I couldn’t begin to evaluate its success. What I know is that I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Which is enough to make it something worth experiencing. You might love it…you might hate it. Either way…you’ll be thinking about it. I don’t even know what to do with scoring this one. I’ll give it a killer coral in a fish tank. You can decide if that’s a good or not for yourself.
