Dreams (2025) (Blu-ray Review)
Director
Michel FrancoRelease Date(s)
2025 (May 26, 2026)Studio(s)
AR Content/Eastern Film/Freckle Films/Teorema (Greenwich Entertainment/Kino Lorber)- Film/Program Grade: B
- Video Grade: A
- Audio Grade: A
- Extras Grade: F
Review
Mexican filmmaker Michel Franco may have a fixation on dysfunction, kidnapping and SA, but boy does he know how to end a movie. His films tend to be slow but fascinating, rich with characters and realistic human portrayals—mostly within situations many of us hope we won’t encounter in our own real lives. But they aren’t, what’s the best word? Gripping? I think that’s fair. In these times, it’s hard to shrug off the want to grab your phone and quickly look something up you just thought about while watching a film at home. Movies today seem to have lost that forward momentum. But Franco pulls a neat trick where the last 15 or so minutes of his films unwind in such a way that he has you, and you end up thinking about the movie for some time afterwards. After Lucia’s gut punch ending does this, New Order does this, and so too does Dreams.
Jennifer (Jessica Chastain) is the daughter of a master of the universe and a very active wealthy socialite in San Francisco. She focuses on building up the arts, dance in particular, where she is secretly the lover of Fernando, a talented Mexican dancer she sponsors in a Mexican dance academy, who has recently made his way over the border and into her bed. (Sex positive Jessica Chastain is a wonder to behold, by the way. She’s great here). The conflict comes in, where Jennifer is seemingly embarrassed by her situation. The two love each other and have a great time when they are alone, but when she runs from a trip because a friend of her father’s checks into the same hotel, and later when she introduces him as a dancer at her academy or eventually as an instructor and not her boyfriend, Fernando has enough and breaks off the relationship. Jennifer looks everywhere for him, even flying to Mexico to see if he returned to his parents (who very much disapprove of the relationship). She goes as far as to hire an investigator to find him. But by chance, she eventually finds him on her own, having used his talent to break into the dance company scene on his own terms, and now he’s becoming the toast of the dance world raising more than a little bit of jealousy—and him still be an illegal, with ICE around the corner, that’s not a good thing. It all comes to an end with a powerhouse final 15 or so minutes that is anything but “feel good”.
Simply put, Dreams is a love story about terrible people. Jennifer is awful. She’s self-centered, entitled and obsessive. And Fernando is equally awful. He’s manipulative, selfish and vindictive. I’ve read reviews of Dreams before I got to watch it myself, and many reviewers label Jennifer as the villain of the film, that she is cheerlessly manipulative and outwardly monstrous to Fernando at every turn of the film, but for my money, this isn’t remotely true. Jennifer is awful, don’t get me wrong, but a little bit of emotional strength and strong communication from Fernando may have either fixed things entirely or clarified the relationship she was entering in and Fernando could have made truer choices for his own emotional needs. These two just kind of met and immediately started to hump each other and then ate, had cursory small take and humped some more. And what Fernando ends up doing in the film is really unacceptable—as much as what Jennifer does to cause him to act is some of the shittiest things a person could do to another person in his position, even if her intention was “for them and for the best”. Dreams is not Franco’s best film, by a long shot, but if you’re looking for a new filmmaker to explore, Michel Franco is highly recommended, and I personally think Dreams is underrated in his oeuvre.
This barebones 2.39:1 Blu-ray is presented in clean and bright 1920x1080p. It’s a watchable image that you won’t think anything bad about. Sound is 5.1 and 2.0. It’s not a very dynamic film sound-wise, but what’s here is pleasant enough. There are no real extras aside from Greenwich library trailers for Dreams, Come Closer, Islands, Love, Brooklyn and The Milky Way.
- Todd Doogan