IN DREAMS (44)

Directed by: Neil Jordan

Starring: Annette Bening, Robert Downey Jr., Aidan Quinn

The Pitch: An illustrator of children's books finds her mind being increasingly possessed by a telepathic child-killer.

Theo Sez: Just a mess ; it's no wonder even its sole rave review (that I've read, viz. the one in "Film Comment") gushes about "scenes so visually psychotropic they sear the vision with permanent afterimages" rather than trying to work through thematic connections or pinpoint specific directorial decisions. It's all over the place, its fairytale motif drifting in and out, juxtaposing OTT supernatural hokum with the 'forensic thriller' dankness of KISS THE GIRLS et al. ; it's a lot more overwrought than those films, which is often a good thing (avoiding their rather sickening matter-of-factness), but also makes for some crashingly silly moments - Bening frenziedly mashing apples in the sink while the camera does a St. Vitus' Dance, or rushing blindly into the street causing cars to pile up (one car might've been okay ; it's the overstatement that makes you giggle). It's all at the same pitch, if nothing else, and does occasionally vault into a kind of hypnotic dream-logic - plotting ever more outlandish, Time more fluid, creepy scenes like the nightmare in the old hotel thrown into the mix ; Jordan's touch is evident in details like the screaming girl-fairies at the school pageant, or the kidnapped child (very Francie Barrett) embracing the idea of a twisted surrogate family. Also, perhaps, in the disdain for plausibility (a variation on the 300-lb. squaddie with a bad North London accent in THE CRYING GAME) and the greedy appetite for stuffing films full of brightly-coloured blarney - even at the expense of coherence.