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Partners
What Dreams May Come
It's one of the gooiest stories ever told. A newly married couple, idyllically happy, both die. One goes to heaven the other to hell, so the man above sets out to rescue the woman from below. It may mean hell for Robin Williams, but it's bloody purgatory for the audience
What do you get if you filch the myth of Orpheus, the lover who ventured into the underworld to rescue his doomed Eurydice, and doctor it with the help Robin Williams, a brilliant show-off inclined to corn? A dollop of schmaltz unequalled in contemporary cinema, so cloyingly sugary it may cause cavities. Williams is Chris, caring physician husband of Anna (Sciorra) a softcore bohemian artist. Compassion and creativity co-mingle when they bump into each other on a boating lake, fall ludicrously in love and embark on a life of rapture so complete you suspect MDMA is involved. But, ouch, bad trip: Chris is killed at the scene of a car crash, and ascends to heaven where he meets a very sage young angel (Gooding Jr). While Anna is so distraught she tops herself: a moral affront so hideous she is consigned to the other place. In the hands of grown-ups the bare bones of this story could perhaps have been turned into a telling examination of grief and coming to terms with powerful, palpable loss. Unfortunately the story is an unremitting weepie, stuffed to the gills with vomitous, empty sentiment. Yuk. What came over promising New Zealand director Vincent Ward, the man behind the inventive Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey? Nevertheless, the film has one considerable saving grace in its design: there are various computer-enhanced, painterly conceptions of heaven and hell. While they may be predictable, they are often quite beautiful or striking (some bring the famed Gustav Dor?? illustrations of Dante's 'Inferno' to literal but glorious cinematic life). Verdict It looks great but otherwise What Dreams May Come is simply another vehicle for Robin Williams' moist-eyed camera hogging. |
