What Dreams May Come

Closing off the tribute to Robin Williams is What Dreams May Come, a 1998 fantasy drama based off the Richard Matheson novel of the same name. Directed by Vincent Ward, it also stars Cuba Gooding Jr., Annabella Sciorra, and Max von Sydow. While it was a box office flop, losing $2 million, it won the Art Directors Guild Award for Excellence in Production Design as well as the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. It lost Best Art Direction to Shakespeare in Love.

Chris (Williams) and Annie’s (Sciorra) idyllic life is shattered when their two children are killed in a car wreck, causing Annie to become emotionally unstable. However, four years later, the two reconcile, but Chris is killed in another car accident. Finding himself in heaven, he is unhappy without Annie. When he finds out she committed suicide and is now in hell, he becomes determined to bring her back.

What Dreams May Come has a very interesting interpretation of both Heaven and Hell, couple that alongside very vibrant and well done visuals, the film is pretty good. However, it still has deviations from the novel and can sometimes the sentimentality can get a little too heavy handed.

The film has a fascinating interpretation of Heaven and Hell, going so far as to portray them as not only what your mind makes of it, but that what you imagine it to be becomes that reality. It makes the Heaven wonderful in that you love being there and can always imagine something to add to it. On the other hand, Hell is not only filled with terror, but it becomes more terrifying as whatever horrors you can imagine materialize. Repeat ad infinitum.

The visuals are also incredibly well done, especially when Chris first gets to heaven and everything is made of oil based paint. It really did well with mixing, smearing, and disintegrating it too, which helped in making it more realistic.

However, the film does deviate some from the book, which has more references to New Age and Theosophical doctrines and the paranormal. Albert and Leona are the people they actually appear to be as the children don’t die and Ann is just meant to be in Hell for 24 years. While these changes were probably made to make the film more sentimental, some of those scenes can come across as just a little much. One in particular is when Chris finds out that Albert is actually his son. The constant shifts to the scene when the two are alive and Albert walking towards Cerberus while he figures it out is drawn out just a little too long.

Despite those deviations and the drawn out sentimentality of a few scenes though, What Dreams May Come is still good. The depiction of the afterlife will obviously not mesh with some viewers’ beliefs, but that doesn’t stop it from being an enjoyable film.