DREAMS
(director/writer: Michel Franco; cinematographer: Yves Cape; editors: Oscar Figueroa Jara, Michel Franco; cast: Jessica Chastain (Jennifer McCarthy), Isaác Hernández (Fernando Rodriguez), Rupert Friend (Jake McCarthy), Marshall Bell (Michael McCarthy), Eligio Meléndez (Fernando’s Father), Mercedes Hernández (Fernando’s Mother); Runtime: 95; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Michel Franco, Eréndira Núñez Larios, Alexander Rodnyansky; Teorema/Freckle Films; 2025-Mexico/USA-in English & Spanish, with English subtitles)
“Pulverizing immigration relationship film.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Mexican writer-director Michel Franco’s (“Chronic”/”Memory”) sparse melodrama is concerned with sex, class, and race differences in this pulverizing immigration relationship film. It follows the charged affair between the manipulative San Francisco divorced socialite, the wealthy businesswoman heiress Jennifer McCarthy (Jessica Chastain), and the much younger impoverished dreamer, a ballet dancer from Mexico City, Fernando (Isaác Hernández, principal dancer at the American ballet theater, making his acting debut).
He’s a handsome young ballet dancer stymied by the U.S. immigration laws, who has an affair with Jennifer after meeting the philanthropist in Mexico City at the dance studio her foundation supports for Mexican immigrants. Fernando illegally crosses the border in a truck filled with illegals after she leaves, and escapes an ICE arrest at the El Paso border to hitchhike to find Jennifer in San Francisco where he has a sexual romp with her in her luxury house. He soon gets annoyed she doesn’t want to see him socially with her rich peers, feeling humiliated that he’s treated as an inferior.
Since her liberal, wealthy, widowed father (Marshall Bell) tells her there are limits to supporting immigrants, and her more conservative brother (Rupert Friend) also disapproves of her Mexican lover, her relationship with him never has a chance. Though Fernando confidently thinks they will marry within a year.
In retaliation for her social snubs, he eventually treats her roughly. At this point the film becomes uncomfortable, as it weaponizes sex.
That it depicts Mexican illegals crossing the border, makes the film relevant for today.
The performances by Chastain and Hernandez are electric, as both play characters who want what they don’t have. Their dream sequences (how the film got its title) of him wanting to star in a major ballet company and her dream of having sex without any cares, has a monkey wrench thrown into it when faced with reality. The provocative film leaves us with the bitter taste of how cruel matters of the heart can be if not resolved.
It played at the Berlin Film Festival.
REVIEWED ON 3/2/2025 GRADE: B
dennisschwartzreviews.com