There is no magic pill or cure people can take that will automatically make their problems go away, but that hasn’t stopped centuries of science, medicine, and numerous other fields from trying to come up with and market something as such. DreamQuil takes place in a retrofuturistic society that serves simply as the setting for its story, which hones in on the idea of loneliness and the striving for something better, convinced there must be some way to set things right and get back to a time when things felt easier and happier.
The city air in this film’s universe has become so toxic that people need to put on protective masks whenever they leave their homes, which they rarely do, retreating instead into pods that allow them to enter virtual locations. Carol (Elizabeth Banks) spends a great deal of time doing this, returning only occasionally to her distant husband Gary (John C. Reilly) and her son Quentin (Toby Larsen). When a friend recommends DreamQuil, a revolutionary service invented by Margo Case (Kathryn Newton), Carol decides to do it, leaving home for a week as a replacement robot is sent to provide for her family in her absence.
This is the feature directorial debut from Alex Prager, who co-wrote the screenplay with her sister Vanessa Prager. There’s absolutely an interesting idea here, and the film, from its start, has an off-kilter feel as there must be something nefarious about DreamQuil, which is advertised as a cure-all but sounds in practice much more like the common cold medicine NyQuil. Carol doesn’t ask many questions and gets even fewer answers when she leaves home for the procedure – if that’s what it can even be called – leaving many unknowns hanging in the air.
That’s the overall theme of this film, which offers considerable intrigue and very minimal payoff. Comparisons to Stepford Wives are made in reference to the robot that takes Carol’s place when she leaves home, and she immediately enters an apparent state of bliss when she gets puts under by a nurse played to creepy perfection by Juliette Lewis. But beyond that, it’s never really clear just what’s going on, and the film ends at a point that feels like midway to the resolution it should offer, still interesting and inviting but ultimately disappointing since it doesn’t arrive at a satisfying finish.
Banks gets to play two roles as the original Carol and the very human-looking robot who has endeared herself (or itself, as the original Carol insists on using an appropriate pronoun) to both her husband and her son. Banks captures just the right degree of nervous paranoia, initially optimistic but then in disbelief when she returns home and feels as if she’s been entirely forgotten and replaced, and then gaslit into thinking that she’s in the wrong for pointing out that something is off. Watching her in both parts shows her range, and she balances the turns opposite each other to make those interactions even more unsettling and ominous.
This film doesn’t attribute itself to a particular date or year, but there’s something about this world that feels like it could have existed years earlier, with medical remedies and robotic technology the only things making it feel like it has to be forward rather than back in time. The dated, faded aesthetic and colors help this feel even more like a fever dream, trapping its protagonist in a prison partially of her own making in addition to the atmospheric claustrophobia that already exists in this universe. Prager shows great promise as a filmmaker, and there’s much to ponder about this film, but its abrupt ending after just eighty-nine minutes is likely to leave audiences wishing it was at least a little bit longer.
Movie Rating: 6/10
