January 14–21, 1999

movie shorts

In Dreams

"From the director of Interview with the Vampire" go the ads for In Dreams, and for once the promotional copy has it right. Neil Jordan might prefer to be remembered as the director of The Crying Game, or last year's excellent The Butcher Boy, but only Jordan's amped-up vamp pic prefigures In Dreams' combination of visual splendor and narrative incoherence. Despite a shoddy plot about a fairy tale illustrator (Annette Bening) whose luridly intense dreams are invaded by a serial killer (Robert Downey, Jr.), two things set In Dreams apart from the pack: the gorgeously evil dream imagery cooked up by cinematographer Darius Khondji and designer Nigel Phelps (City of Lost Children and Seven), and Bening's phenomenal performance, brittle, manic, and unlike anything she's done. It seems as if Bening is given an unusual amount of screen time, but it may just be that her presence eclipses everything else on the screen, including Downey, who seems to mistake antics for acting. Jordan regular Stephen Rea does a credible enough job as a kindly psychiatrist who realizes too late that Claire is telling the truth about the killer who has possessed her.

-Sam Adams