Review of the film I can only imagine it with Nicolas Cage

Director Kristoffer Borgli made an excellent decision in the new satirical film It seems to me, which will be screened in Czech cinemas from Thursday. In the role of a man annoying in the middle of the night in other people’s heads, he cast Nicolas Cage, who has been creeping into our minds for decades.

At first it seems that Paul could profit from his mysterious acquaintance, for which he did not have to do anything. Everywhere he goes, he gets stared at. There is no place where someone does not know him. And soon they will hear from the agency that intends to monetize this acquaintance of his.

A distressed, slightly yelled professor, who has longed for years to publish a book about ant intelligence, begins to dream himself. About being famous, about releasing a dream title. But first, he would have to write it first, as his wife pointed out pragmatically. And above all, the nature of the dreams in which it occurs should not begin to change.

In his English-language debut, the 39-year-old Norwegian director and screenwriter Borgli, like in his previous film I Feel Bad, deals with self-deception. The protagonists of this film were sickly hungry for attention. And they were willing to do anything for her, including self-mutilation and other extreme acts.

In the new Borgli again oscillates between horror and satirical comedy, while trying to push the initial premise to the point of absurdity. But while the heroine Signe from the older film was actively working on building her image, Paul is changing in front of others without any help of his own.

The author brilliantly incorporates short flashes of dream scenes into the news. In them, Paul initially appears as a passive observer of often bizarre, fantastic or terrifying events. But then he starts acting. When, in one dream, he enters a young woman’s room, sits down next to her on the couch, silently licks her ear and grabs her crotch, it excites the person so much that when they actually meet, she tries to reproduce the dream in reality. The result is one of the most embarrassing sex scenes to be seen in a long time.

Unfortunately, as with the previous film, it fails to bring potentially excellent ideas into a completely convincing form. As soon as Paul acts like a deviant or a thug and people start to fear him in the real world as well, the film loses its energy and becomes a rather simple critique of a modern world obsessed with the virtual presentation of anything that surpasses real perceptions. And the final twist from the realm of science fiction already seems completely embarrassing.

But Nicholas Cage is still here. In one of his best roles, he outgrows the film and keeps it afloat. A master of extremely overwrought emotions, he needs characters to carry his acting. And here he found the royal party.

Logically, the audience should feel sorry for him, because he is not a self-destructive poor thing like Signe from I’m Sick of Myself. Paul, on the other hand, becomes a victim of prejudice and irrational, albeit understandable behavior of distrustful people – as viewers of the series know A Nightmare on Elm Streetif someone terrorizes you in your dreams, you won’t be friends with them in reality either.

Cage problematizes everything with his self-pitying whining, which may be appropriate, but it doesn’t make him seem like a victim. More like some weird, slightly deranged uncle who has been whispered about somewhere in the family for decades.

Kristoffer Borgli wants to thematize a whole range of ailments plaguing today’s society. Dreams are supposed to be a metaphor for our stay on social networks, which also overwhelm us with a number of false images.

At the same time, it is an attempt to problematize the so-called cancel culture and take a critical look at how absurd reasons can ruin an individual’s life. But in the end, the film does not focus on any of those themes.

It’s not a drama like 2013’s The Hunt, in which prejudices, social settings and unfortunate coincidences turn a teacher played by Mads Mikkelsen into a social outcast. Among other things, this film benefited from the fact that it fairly accurately reflected some of the specifics of the Scandinavian countries regarding social policy.

In the end, the novel is mainly an overly general and incomplete satire, although it does not lack excellent passages. It looks a bit like an average episode of the series Black mirror. It’s a better work than last year’s final series opener, Joan is Terrible, where the heroine for a change penetrated the minds of millions of people in near-real time with the show, which had a similarly destructive effect on her life.

Unlike this episode of Black Mirror, Borgli keeps a little more to the ground, doesn’t chase as many topics, and most of all, he knows how to create uncomfortable, sticky situations that, with the help of Cage, get under the skin and under the nails of the audience.

That makes it still a remarkable title that invites confrontation. Although in the end it may not be as fruitful as perhaps the filmmakers intended.