In Dreams

Plot

Claire Cooper dreams strange things from time to time. One night, she dreams about a little girl being taken away by a stranger…

Release Year: 1999

Rating: 5.3/10 (7,931 voted)

Director:
Neil Jordan

Stars: Annette Bening, Robert Downey Jr., Katie Sagona

Storyline
Claire Cooper dreams strange things from time to time. One night, she dreams about a little girl being taken away by a stranger, right in her neighbourhood. When her own daughter Rebecca is kidnapped and murdered only a little later, Claire is sure about the chilling truth that her and the killer's mind are connected to each other in dreams. But nobody believes her being able to foresee the killer's next steps, as she could with her own daughter. In addition, the nervous breakdown she suffers gets her into a mental facility after a suicide attempt. And here, locked away in a padded cell, she dreams of her husband being murdered…

Writers: Bari Wood, Bruce Robinson

Cast:

Annette Bening
–

Claire Cooper

Katie Sagona
–

Rebecca Cooper

Aidan Quinn
–

Paul Cooper

Robert Downey Jr.
–

Vivian Thompson

Paul Guilfoyle
–

Detective Jack Kay

Kathleen Langlois
–

Snow White

Jennifer Berry
–

Hunter

Emma J. Brown
–

Dwarf

Jennifer Dragon
–

Dwarf

Samantha Kelly
–

Dwarf

Jennifer Caine Natenshon
–

Dwarf

Bethany M. Paquin
–

Dwarf

Erica Sullivan
–

Dwarf

Amelia Claire Novotny
–

Prince

Kristin Sroka
–

Wicked Stepmother

Taglines:
You don't have to sleep to dream

Release Date: 15 January 1999

Filming Locations: Amherst, Massachusetts, USA

Box Office Details

Budget: $30,000,000

(estimated)

Opening Weekend: $4,593,872
(USA)
(17 January 1999)
(1670 Screens)

Gross: $12,017,369
(USA)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

100 min

Did You Know?

Trivia:

The underwater scenes were filmed in Quabbin Reservoir, where the township of Dana, MA once stood.

Goofs:

Factual errors:
During sentencing, the judge tells Vivian "the State of Massachusetts has declared you insane," thus making him ineligible for the death penalty. In legal parlance, Massachusetts is always referred to as a Commonwealth, and does not practice the death penalty.

Quotes:

[first lines]

Claire:
[Helping daughter rehearse lines from Snow White while walking through trees by lake]

[In sing-song voice]

Claire:
Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the fairest of us all?

Rebecca Cooper:
[Skipping through trees by lake]

[In sing-song voice]

Rebecca Cooper:
You're the fairest in this hall but Snow WHITE is THE…

Claire:
[laughs]
Come on Rebecca, forget it's a play. Just, say it like you're saying it to me.

Rebecca Cooper:
[sing-song voice]
Snow White's the fairest of them all.

Claire:
And again.
[…]

User Review

APPLES are a key representation!!!

Rating: 8/10

Apples, Apples, Apples, that's what everyone keeps saying about this
film. Perhaps it was a little overdone, but did anyone ever stop to think
that the apples were representative of Clair's fear. The apple, the most
innocent of all things, a fruit, as the repository of one's own nightmares
and fears is creepy enough in itself. Many regard the scene where Clair is
frantically throwing apples from a pile on the cupboard into the garburator
of the sink as funny. I didn't I was well enough into the film, that the
moment actually felt creepy. Jordan's vicious left/right pans of the camera
reinforced her feeling of panic or anxiety around the apples.

To mention a couple of the other good points about "In Dreams", there
were a couple of ingenious cross cutting scenes created. The first is a
cross cut sequence involving Clair who is now in the mental hospital and her
husband who goes to the motel that she dreamed about to find the dog.
Another wonderful cross-cut sequence involves the escape from the
institution. In her dreams, Clair follows Vivian (who had spent time in the
exact same room as Clair) out of the institution, and there is much
cross-cutting between the past and the present. Much suspense was built in
the production of this scene. I don't want to give away any of the ending,
but trust me, it scared me lifeless. This is definitely not Neil Jordan's
best work, certainly "The Crying Game" is his masterpiece, but nevertheless,
this is an original horror suspense film that delivers a
punch!