ROBOGEEK REVIEWS "WHAT DREAMS MAY COME" (SORT OF...)

"To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil..."

-- Hamlet, Act III scene I

Six years ago, New Zealand filmmaker Vincent Ward presented his work-in-progress "Map of the Human Heart" at Cannes, and those of us in attendance were treated to a peek at a spellbinding romantic adventure epic, quite unlike anything ever before seen. It heralded the arrival of a tantalizing talent onto the international stage, with the promise of a potentially magnificent future filmography.

Ever since then, I have eagerly anticipated Ward's next film. Years passed, and I finally heard he would be helming his first American production -- an ambitious adaptation of Richard Matheson's "What Dreams May Come." (Matheson, you ought to know, also authored such works as "I Am Legend" and "Somewhere in Time.")

Later, I discovered the script was written by Ron Bass, and then I heard the cast -- Robin Williams, Cuba Gooding Jr., Annabella Sciorra, and Max Von Sydow -- and "What Dreams May Come" landed on my list of five most anxiously awaited films.

Of course, the script made its way to AICN HQ, though I initially resisted the temptation of reading it. Every time I dropped by Harry's, though, it kept calling to me from the endless stacks of screenplays arrayed like skyscrapers throughout, among which he lords over like Godzilla. Finally, I couldn't resist any longer, and gave into temptation. I liberated the script and took it with me on a weekend trip to Kerrville early this summer.

I was staying at a dear friend's family home, high on a hilltop overlooking the Texas Hill Country. Early that Saturday morning, I went out on the back porch with a tall glass of apple juice, accompanied by the very polite canine-in-residence, who took a seat by my feet, and started reading. (That is to say I started reading -- the canine, to my knowledge, did not.) It was a gorgeous, quiet, cool summer morning with a gentle breeze and Miyazaki-esque clouds soaring by overhead. And after just a few pages, I was in tears. Damn, this is going to be a great movie, I thought, imagining the characters as they'd been cast, and contemplating Ward's direction.

I finished the script in the car on the way back to Austin, and I'm sure my two travelling companions were wondering why I was so quiet during the drive. Just as we reached our destination, I completed the last page of the script.

The script totally had me until about six pages shy of the end. Uh-oh..., I murmured to myself at that point, as I realized the ending simply wouldn't work. I talked to Harry about it, and he of course played Devil's advocate, disagreeing with me vehemently. (He loves doing that. He kept me on the phone for hours once trying to convince me the ending of "The Defective Detective" was actually perfect instead of fatally flawed and unproducable. Someday I'll review that otherwise brilliant Gilliam/LaGravenese script and you'll know what I'm talking about.)

Here's my thing: Up until its original ending, "What Dreams May Come" stays within a strict set of certain fundamental philosophical boundaries, and doesn't cross the line into inconsistency with conventional Western religious thought. Its interpretations and extrapolations on some basic Judeo-Christian beliefs are certainly novel, but steer clear of being outright contradictory. This is one of the reasons the story works. It takes certain underpinings of common belief systems, and builds on them inventively to create resonance.

(For instance, at the center of the film is an inspired twist on the basic Catholic concept of a "personal hell," which yields the idea of a "personal heaven.")

In the original ending, though, this all pretty much falls apart, as the film makes a wild, unexpected departure from Western thought to land smack dab in the middle of Eastern teachings of karma and reincarnation. Reading it, this sudden shift gave me psychic whiplash, and I was struck with the image of an entire audience suddenly stop crying, and start scratching their heads. With that ending, I figured the film would lose much of its hope of being a mainstream hit, and potentially alienate half the audience who just wouldn't get it, or even want to try. It's just too big and sudden of a philosophical leap to ask of an audience without any manner of preparation. Even a little foreshadowing would have helped.

So, suffice it to say, I was a little worried after reading the script. I knew they shot the script as written, but feared what would happen in test screenings. I knew the studio execs would panic, and lose the ending, and possibly over-compensate and just make things worse.

And they did. In fact, later this summer I had the chance to see a rough cut of the film. This is the film I will attempt to review. This is not the film you will see.

This was, apparently, an intermediate attempt at a final cut of the film. The final six pages were simply _gone_. Poof! And there was no new ending. In fact, there was no ending at all.

I was truly stunned that anyone actually thought it would work. It didn't.

Since then, a new ending has been concocted. I have heard about the ending, and had it described to me in detail, but haven't yet seen it. Apparently, it is a watered down ending. A more palatable ending. A less philosophically threatening ending. A simplified ending. A Hollywood ending.

I don't think it'll work, either. But then, I haven't seen it. I will tomorrow when it opens.

Honestly, there is no easy way to effectively end this film. I've been wrestling with the problem for months, wracking my brain. With a little bit of reworking here, some tweaking there, the original ending just might have worked. But it's fundamental aspect is, I think, perhaps too big of a hurdle to bring the audience past. Ideally, if this problem had been identified at the script stage, some delicate surgery could have been performed, and some groundwork could have been laid to help make the ending more palatable. The key thing -- without giving too much away -- is that a price has to be paid at the end of the film for it to work. My understanding of the new ending is that this price isn't really paid, which is a problem.

And then there's the score. (Faithful readers should know by now how important score are to me.) The film I saw had a heartbreaking, beautiful, understated and masterful score by Ennio Morricone. Harry called it the best score of the year. So far, I'm still in agreement with him. It could've won an Oscar. The film you will see will have a score by Michael Kamen. Granted, I haven't heard the new score, but I can tell you I loved the Morricone one. I wish I had it on CD. (I'll have to work on that...) If they _had_ to replace Morricone's score, I wish they'd at least gotten Gabriel Yared (who exquisitely scored Ward's previous film, the aforementioned "Map of the Human Heart," as well as a little film called "The English Patient").

But, when all is said and done, this is still exactly the kind of movie I'm a sucker for. It's the kind of movie I've always dreamed of seeing, but was never entirely convinced could get made. And, well, it was _almost_ made. It's an $80 million art film, and a breakthrough in digital visual effects as art. And those stunning effects (by the gods at Digital Domain, Mass Illusions, POP and CIS) are perfectly married to gorgeous cinematography by Eduardo Serra -- both in perfect harmony with marvellous production design by Eugenio Zanetti. In fact, those three elements are the best of any film I've yet seen this year, and combine to create one of the most beautiful _looking_ films I've ever seen. It is absolutely spellbinding.

Have you ever seen Akira Kurosawa's "Dreams"? Remember the scene where the painter is wandering through a museum gallery of Van Gogh, and after staring at one long enough, he finds himself _in_ the paintings? And he wanders through painting after painting, ultimately finding Van Gogh himself (played by Martin Scorsese, no less)? This film takes inside a world that spans Claude Monet, Maxfield Parrish, Casper David Friedrich, and others with jaw-dropping results. This film simply wouldn't have been possible to produce even a few years ago. It is truly inventive.

That caliber of work is matched by the performances. The cast is dead-on perfect. As Chris' personal heaven is first painted in impressionistic strokes, so, in a way, is the film -- particularly the characters and their relationships, specifically Robin Williams' Chris and Annabella Sciorra's Annie. Their innate connection is communicated very effectively, I thought, through careful attention to detail, resulting in a powerful resonance. You believe these two characters are soul mates. And as soon as you buy that, you know that nothing else really matters to them. Williams' character literally goes through hell, and it's convincing -- not just due to the effects, but his performance -- the sound of his voice, the look in his eyes, the expressions on his face. This ranks among his strongest performances, along with "Dead Poets Society," "The Fisher King" and "Good Will Hunting." His strength of emotional presence is matched by Cuba Gooding, Jr., who is thrillingly fantastic, giving a pristine performance of remarkable dimension, nuance, gravity and grace. Given he got a supporting actor nomination for "Jerry Maguire," there's no excuse for him not to receive one for this role. Annabella Sciorra and Max Von Sydow also deliver exactly what they need to, but the film really belongs to Robin and Cuba.

And, you know, I was genuinely surprised to see a big-budget Hollywood film make statements as decisive as, say, "if you commit suicide, you go to hell." This is a pretty heavy and deep film. However, the strength of the statements it sets out to make may be diluted by a cop-out ending. The story is so intricate and complex, every piece has to fit together for it to work. This new ending weakens the very foundation of the story and diminishes the ultimate impact the film could have had. Still, the heart of this film is so strong, so full of sincere honesty... If you're a hopeless romantic, and loved "Somewhere in Time," this movie will absolutely kill you. And as brilliant as the depiction of heaven is, the depiction of hell is at least as inspired.

I'm amazed this film even got made, and am thankful for it. Hats off to Polygram and Interscope for having the vision and the nerve. I only wish you had ironed out the ending before you started shooting, and that you had kept the Morricone score. (Someday, though, I would love to see a DVD release of the original cut. That would be a treat.)

"What Dreams May Come" is an extraordinary cinematic achievement. I regard it as a must-see. It is _almost_ a great film. Almost. And that, in a way, breaks my heart, because I can see the perfection it strived for that stayed just out of reach. Still, it is an unforgettable moviegoing experience. While it certainly will make my Top Ten list for the year, I have a feeling it'll fall short of landing in my Top Five.

I'm encouraged by the marketing muscle that's being put behind the film, and hope that audiences find it and connect with it. It is a romantic adventure epic unlike anything we've ever seen, though one heartless critic I won't name has already written it off as a "feel-good Orpheus for the '90s, mired in mushiness." He's wrong. (I was going to say he's a heartless bastard, but everyone's entitled to their opinion, I suppose.)

As you know, this film opens Friday -- the same day as ANTZ, which I'm really looking forward to. Personally, though, I'm going to see "...Dreams..." first. I'd suggest you do the same.

- Robogeek