Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
In Dreams (1998)
Director: Neil Jordan
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Immediately signalling its blend of supernatural horror and intense psychological drama, Jordan's film opens with a visually arresting, breathtaking sequence. Police divers searching for the victims of a child killer glide gracefully through the clear flood waters covering a New England town, the rooms of its abandoned buildings still intact below the surface. Above, clairvoyant children's book illustrator Claire Cooper plunges into her unconscious, delving for clues about where the killer might strike next. Sadly, this is merely the haunting overture to an essentially prosaic variation on the 'abused child grows into serial killer' plot. While Downey hams it up something rotten as bad apple Vivian, Bening's portrayal of Claire has a diamond clarity that deserve a better setting. If her illustrations for a book of Grimms' fairy tales provided a conduit for the killer to enter her mind, by descending into madness she can confront him on his home ground: in order to destroy him, she must become him. Yet for all Jordan's imaginative use of skewed nightmare logic, this is a b/w photocopy of a serial killer plot that has merely been coloured in with super-saturated dream sequences and over-elaborate art house imagery.Author: NF
Cast & crew
Director: Neil Jordan
Producer: Stephen Woolley
Cast: Annette Bening, Katie Sagona, Aidan Quinn, Robert Downey Jr, Stephen Rea, Paul Guilfoyle, Prudence Wright Holmes, Krystal Benn, Pamela Payton-Wright full cast
Genre(s): Thrillers
Duration: 100 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
To the letter
Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.
Mind over matter
David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.
Fool's gold
Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.
We are the championed
Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."
A history of violence
Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.
True romantic
James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.
Playing in the dark
MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.
Junk bonds
Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.
What do you think?
Post your review now