Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Dreams’ on Starz, a Melodrama of Smoldering Sex and Chilly Politics Starring Jessica Chastain

With Dreams (now on Starz), oft-incendiary director Michel Franco points his unblinking stare at the commingling of sex and socioeconomic power, with by turns erotic and unsettling results. Jessica Chastain and Mexican ballet dancer-turned-actor Isaac Hernandez headline this quietly incendiary drama about an uneasy romance between a rich American and an illegal immigrant — a dynamic that’s very much in Franco’s wheelhouse.

DREAMS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

The Gist: The semi-truck sits roadside for an indeterminate amount of time before we hear desperate voices coming from inside the trailer. It sits on the Texas side of the U.S.-Mexico border. Someone finally opens the doors under cover of darkness, and the people spill out, among them Fernando Rodriguez (Hernandez), who walks and walks and walks until he reaches a restaurant, where he grabs a glass of water and drinks before he’s shooed away. He hitchhikes to San Francisco and seeks out a specific townhome where he finds a key and lets himself in, helps himself to the refrigerator and soon lies in bed naked where Jennifer McCarthy (Chastain) doesn’t at all seem surprised to find him. She’s dressed all in white — she’s pretty much always dressed in white. Soon enough she’s not dressed at all, and in, shall we say, full congress with Fernando.

These two can’t get enough of each other, and as we piece together details and implications here and there, we come to understand how this cross-cultural love affair came to be. Jennifer’s family has capital-M Money, and when you have capital-M Money, philanthropic foundations have your name on them. Her father (Marshall Bell) oversees the foundation, and she and her brother Jake (Rupert Friend) nurse their projects within it. Jennifer is a patron of the arts who opens community centers and dance studios, including one in Mexico City, where Fernando danced in the ballet. Jake makes a shitty comment about “spending our money on Americans” and Jennifer laughs it off. There are two compartments in her life: the politely passionate one with her work on these artsy-liberal endeavors and the smoldering, lusty one with Fernando.

Being a secret doesn’t sit well with Fernando, though. Perhaps Jennifer’s concern about his illegal status prompts her to use her money and power to protect him, but she also may not see him fitting in with her life of chauffeurs opening doors for her and galas where her family is the recipient of the type of polite applause reserved for people who throw their money around, delivered by people dependent upon that money. Her refusal to integrate him into her life — she’s older than him by at least a decade — prompts him to leave, apparently wandering the streets until he finds a job cleaning motel rooms. Jennifer doggedly, and maybe obsessively, tries to find him, but he doesn’t turn up until she sees him dancing outside the San Francisco Ballet for a ticket to the show. It endears him to the ballet director and lands him a place in the troupe, notably without Jennifer’s help. He’s made his own way. But existing outside of Jennifer’s umbrella of influence leaves him vulnerable to storms.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Franco has a distinctly austere style that renders his films observational, but frequently capturing extreme emotions – and Dreams is a blend of the overtly political content of his film New Order and the personal melodramas he explored in Sundown and the Chastain-starring Memory.   

Performance Worth Watching: Chastain continues to elevate middle-of-the-road-ish material with thoughtful and nuanced performances (see also: Molly’s Game, The Forgiven, The Good Nurse), but that’s not surprising. More revelatory is Hernandez, who shows exceptional allure and complexity as an actor, and lends the film some crucial authenticity via his impressive abilities on the dance floor.

Sex And Skin: A few scenes of an explicit-enough nature to raise an eyebrow —and the temperature in the room — until it gets unsettling.

Our Take: It’s easier to admire Franco’s visual approach and tonal control than his blunt thematics, but that signature push-and-pull isn’t surprising from a director who arrives at each film with significant intent. Which is a long way of saying Dreams is pretty far from subtle as it renders the central romance as a heavily symbolic representation of the power dynamics of philanthropy — they give, with the means to take it away — and U.S.-Mexico political relations. Jennifer and Fernando tend to be defined more by the director’s thematics than their humanity. By the third act, Franco is fully committed to a bellowing screed, albeit one presented without the manipulations of a musical score or contrived camerawork or editing; that cold, unblinking stare generates an immediacy that hits us like a blow to the gut.

Such intensity from the cast and filmmaker renders Dreams an engrossing watch that ultimately leaves you with a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach: This couple is primarily defined by their physical relationship, whether they’re ravishing each other on a staircase (ouch?) or redefining that level of violence later in the film. Again, that’s not outside the bounds of expectation for this director. He opens the film with the central mystery of who Jennifer and Fernando are, then gradually reveals the complexities of their – well, can we call it “love”? I think so. But Franco understands how fragile and broad that word, that concept, can be, and wisely — and not at all out of character for him — avoids sentimental notions, e.g., if only all this SOCIETY wasn’t getting in the way, these people could be happy together! His sensibility is much darker than that. An engrossing watch then, yes, but not an easy one either. 

Our Call: Dreams can be a mixed bag, but Franco is too strong a filmmaker to simply brush his work away. STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance film critic from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Werner Herzog hugged him once.