One year after its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in 2025, Dreams, the new film by Mexican director Michel Franco, finally arrives. It is a psychosexual story portraying the relationship (romantic? dependent? obsessive?) between an undocumented Mexican immigrant and a wealthy white philanthropist in the United States. In the intervening time, the conversation surrounding U.S. immigration policies—and especially their impact on Latino communities both inside and outside the country—has shifted from a prominent topic to an urgent and daily omnipresent one. It is therefore inevitable to confront what might otherwise be dismissed as the scandalous film of the week as a work deserving sharper critical attention.

Franco has never shied away from controversy, and his films—alternating between native productions in Mexico and international projects with prominent actors in Hollywood and Europe—have consistently explored stories steeped in moral ambiguity and dark outcomes. With a screenplay by the director himself, he remains faithful to those impulses in recounting the story of Fernando Rodríguez (Isaac Hernández), an ambitious and talented ballet dancer who crosses the border from Mexico into the United States hoping to continue his artistic career. His arrival also entails traveling from San Antonio, Texas, to San Francisco to reunite with Jennifer McCarthy (Jessica Chastain), with whom he has maintained a relationship for over six months.

We learn the context and details much later (that Jennifer sponsors the dance academy to which he belonged in Mexico City). But the opening scenes offer no immediate answers, turning that initial disorientation into a source of curiosity that compels the viewer to piece together the fragments provided. He enters her home almost like a burglar, yet when she finds him in her bed, she does not seem particularly surprised. It quickly becomes evident that they know each other very well, and that there is not only sexual chemistry between them but a deeply attuned physical relationship.

Fernando and Jennifer are great together as long as they remain on top of one another, detached from the surrounding world. Yet the abyss between them is inescapable before and after sex (and whatever might qualify as romance in between). They clearly hold very different expectations of what they want—especially now that Fernando is in her territory and in a precarious condition: undocumented, without papers, and without contacts beyond her.

As part of a wealthy family, she co-manages a foundation dedicated to the arts, specifically ballet, with initiatives supporting talent from disadvantaged communities and immigrant backgrounds. It was easier for her to maintain a relationship with Fernando in Mexico, where she could exercise control through privilege and keep that sphere of her life secret from a social circle that would find it inappropriate. Now, Fernando resents being someone who must remain hidden. The ingredients are all present for a melodrama of misfortune more Fassbinder than Sirk—one in which the certainties each character holds about their power over the other (for her, money; for him, talent; for both, beauty) reveal themselves as insufficient and excessive inconveniences within the social fabric that envelops them.

Being a Franco film, Dreams is not shy about sex. The eroticism here lies not only in the nudity but in the filthy exchanges of words that precede it, and progressively the dynamics twist into something darker, not devoid of violence—more psychological than physical. Chastain reunites with Franco after Memory, and with this second collaboration, one could argue that she has found in him an ideal artistic accomplice: Someone who understands her talent and is willing to challenge it, pushing her beyond any comfort zone that may have constrained her in recent Hollywood productions. She is spectacular in balancing vulnerability and coldness, embodying someone constantly navigating profound contradictions—even in moments when the film falls short of granting her something more complex or intelligent. Hernández, a professional dancer in real life, brings the right physicality and energy to the material, though he is most electrifying in his scenes opposite Chastain.

Taken together, many elements make Dreams narratively compelling, while its elegant mise-en-scène often projects a clinical detachment. There are practically no close-ups, and even in intimate scenes, the wide framing sustains the sense that genuine closeness is impossible between the players. Symbolically, this is perfect—yet it creates friction.

However, politically and culturally, the film has little substance, and when it gestures toward portrayals of the immigrant condition in the United States, it feels more illustrative than inquisitive. This is not necessarily a demerit, but it is somewhat disappointing coming from a Mexican director with the opportunity to tell such stories with globally scaled resources and talent.

As a potential erotic thriller, it never fully commits to either extreme capable of generating visceral shock. The final stretch stages a power game involving torture, kidnapping, and a near-rape sequence that makes one long for a provocateur like Paul Verhoeven or Adrian Lyne. It becomes almost too perfunctory in its attempt to unsettle critics and audiences, and in doing so renders the film simplistic and undercooked. It’s hard not to miss the Franco of Memory, whose ability to extract a mature emotional punch respected and empathized with his characters.