Okay, so I was interested when I saw this movie advertised, due to always having a strong interest in dreams and how the subconscious works, at least in fiction. And the idea of a whole lot of people randomly dreaming about a completely random person (a completely average person, in the words of many characters) was a really intriguing one.
I do have to say that I found Paul to be quite a bland, uninteresting character. The most interesting part of him was the fact that he kept on appearing in random people’s dreams…and it was especially interesting to see just how weird people’s dreams were, although a lot of them were still real-world based. I don’t know about other people, but I personally have had a lot of dreams that are far more fantastical in nature. This movie could have done a lot with the strange and fantastical, instead of having dreams that drew a lot from the real world. The only time the confusion you sometimes experience in dreams came through was when Paul himself had a dream! Other than that, all of the dreams just seemed written by people who were basing everything off of the real world. Where were the dreams where people are superheroes, or can fly?
One thing that I did think this movie did quite well was in showcasing how quickly someone can not only lose fame…but become a disliked figure in the public eye. While I did find Paul to be bland and uninteresting, since he seemed to have very little interest in changing his life (he talked a lot about his book he was writing, but made no attempt to actively do anything with it for most of the movie), I did feel some empathy for him. After all, even when the dreams turned to nightmares, he wasn’t responsible for that…though it quite clearly had something to do with his mental state, given the dreams did change as a result of his life getting worse.
I would have liked to see Paul take more of an active role in his own life. I really didn’t feel like he was that interested in changing things for himself, which was part of what made this film not as entertaining as it could have been.
On the whole, I felt that this movie was kind of entertaining…but there was a lot more that could have been done with it. And I would have liked to see a main character who actually did something, instead of just…well, stading there and watching like an awkward observer. I wouldn’t watch this film again, to be honest.
Ink of Blood 