FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1998 All Rights Reserved.
| FILM What Dreams May Come Vincent Ward, the New Zealand director who has brought the darkest recesses of his fertile and fragmented imagination to the screen in the engaging films Vigil, Navigator, and Map of the Human Heart, finally has the real bucks to realize his dream with What Dreams May Come. All the power to him - many a less worthy director has worked with more and accomplished far less. And, as in the case of fellow surrealist and former Monty Python member Terry Gilliam, the more the money, the less the creative discipline. If anything, the one thing that What Dreams May Come suffers from is the obvious strain studio heads exerted on Ward to come out with a mainstream, palatable product geared for a mass audience. Chris Nielsen (Robin Williams) meets his soulmate (Annabella Sciorra) on a trip to Europe. They marry and live happily ever after - until a car accident claims the lives of both their children. Chris is soon to follow, and his wife, feeling left out, takes her own life. Chris finds life in heaven meaningless without his soulmate and seeks to find her in a purgatory/hell where suicides end up. Against all odds, he is determined to bring her back with him or join her. The screenplay is written by Ron Bass (Rainman) from the novel by Richard Matheson, a sci-fi writer best known for his Incredible Shrinking Man. Pursuing a difficult theme, one of heaven and hell, Bass provides nothing really new in theological musings, yet never paints himself into a corner. As a result, the film seems as good as any other interpretation of a rather enigmatic subject. As well, Ward avoids trapping himself into one concrete theological belief. He essentially uses the vast array of finances available to him to explore to his heart's content his own mystical vision of life and death. Though he's stealing here from everywhere, Ward still manages to inject his own personal take from time to time. Where Dreams May Come ends up as a visually stunning, often entertaining, yet thoroughly lightweight exploration of the afterlife. Let's face it, when so many bucks are on the line, you have to be entertaining. The shame of it is that Ward has not challenged the provocative theme as he did in his earlier films. It will be interesting to see where Ward goes next. I, for one, hope, like Gilliam, Ward returns to explore his roots and the vast potential his imagination has blessed him with. |