Nicolas Cage in Dream Scenario (A24)

Dream Scenario’s pitch could very well have been conceived for Jordan Peele’s Twilight Zone reboot had it been granted an extra season. Nicolas Cage stars as Paul Matthews, a mild-mannered, balding professor who lives a quiet life with his wife, Janet (Julianne Nicholson), and two daughters. Paul’s life consists of teaching, going home, being with family, and other mundane situations. None of which explains why he ends up randomly appearing in one of his daughter’s dreams. Or, as Paul soon learns, everyone’s dreams.

Old colleagues. Friends of friends. His students. Even random people around the world all dream of Paul Matthews. He’s not really doing anything in these dreams, just lounging around or going for a stroll as weird things like an earthquake happen around Paul and the dreamer. But this unexpected fame skyrockets him to the center of media attention, at least until it all goes wrong. Without warning, the dreams start becoming more violent (one of the few times the movie allows Cage to embrace his trademark lunatic side), and the public blames Paul for it, resulting in the unwanted fear and harassment he endures for something he literally has no control over.

What’s most fascinating about Dream Scenario is its lack of explanations. Norwegian director Kristoffer Borgli never reveals how Paul came to inhabit everyone’s dream space, nor does Paul seem interested in exploring the source of this phenomenon. The movie hints at his feelings of inadequacy and disgruntlement at not receiving credit for an old academic project as primary motivators. For the most part, though, Paul is just happy to receive some attention. Maybe even use the clout to promote an academic book he’s wanted to write for some time, much to the confusion of a marketing firm leader (Michael Cera), who hopes Paul will use his dream appearances to engage in subliminal collaborations with Sprite.

Dream Scenario, a darkly comedic film, often juxtaposes Paul’s meekness against his presence in the dreamers’ subconscious. Some find him bizarre, others morbidly fascinating, and one young woman Paul meets at the firm confesses she envisions him as a rough sexual partner (a kink that fails to live up to expectations in one of the comedy’s most awkwardly hilarious bits). Ironically, it’s only when Paul becomes more active in these dreams (kicking down a door and coming at people with an axe) that public sentiment turns on him, and Paul’s imaginary wrongdoings turn him into a pariah among students and colleagues.

The last 20 years or so of Cage’s career have been dominated by internet memes and video compilations of his willingness to ham things up on camera. From Vampire’s Kiss and Face/Off to The Wicker Man, there is an obsession with the actor’s wide-ranging on-screen behavior that we enjoy both ironically and seriously. It’s a testament to his longevity that Cage can switch between acting personas—even when he’s starring in schlocky, low-budget, “so bad they’re good” pictures—and still garner such a passionate fanbase. The joke of Dream Scenario then is how un-Cage-like a character Cage is playing while people lose their minds over his dream presence for better and eventually for worse.

Whether audiences walk away positively from Dream Scenario will depend on how they regard its ending. After an extended period of building up Paul’s growing estrangement from the outside world, Borgli makes a hard pivot into Black Mirror territory. The resulting twist certainly expands upon the idea of society capitalizing on this “entering one’s dreams” market, but it does feel like it comes out of nowhere.

A24 has grown into the foremost U.S. distributor of experimental, deeply psychological pictures. While Dream Scenario isn’t quite Everything Everywhere All at Once–level great, it still entertains with a unique tragicomic art-house pitch by a rising filmmaker and a performer who regularly defies expectations. It’s more of an anxiety dream structurally than a nightmare, but no less thought-provoking.