
The theme of grief caused by a loved one’s death is perhaps one of the earliest topics that filmmakers have toyed with ever since the commencement of the film industry. Nowadays, however, this theme appears to be particularly evident in recent works. Filmmaker Nacho Vigalondo once again proves why he is the king of unconventional storytelling with his recent project, which explores the loss of a partner through the usage of lucid dreams. This approach can be compared to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, where the main characters explored the death of a relationship through the act of erasing memories and not without critique regarding men and women’s positions within love. More often than not in the case of Vigalondo, two remarkably good ideas get lost in the execution. While this may be the case, the notion of Daniela Forever gives enough direction for the final product to still be bearable as a movie.
Nick (Henry Golding) is using all his energy to move around Madrid after the demise of his Artist love, Daniela (Beatrice Grannò). To help him adjust a concerned friend asks him to enter into a clinical trial, which in her case helped her with her own troubles, by using lucid dreaming. Nick has a terrible experience the first time he takes the drug and creates a version of his beloved, Daniela in his head. In his mind she is for all intents and purposes real. Nick takes the pills more and more frequently to have more time with her and he starts feeling that he can wield more power over his dreams. This allows him to have more control over her but then, Daniela begins gaining some free will and starts mentioning her previous lover Teresa (Aura Garrido), who Nick met and dated in reality after the funeral of Daniela. Will Nick finally have everyone disengage his brain and stop being obsessed with lucid dreaming? Or will he surrender to the virtual world and not let his desire love leave it?
Vigalondo has always had no trouble coming up with great concepts: His last film, 2016s Colossal, revolves around a woman who transforms into a destructive monster while intoxicated and his feature length directorial debut, 2007 Time Crimes, is among the most idiosyncratic take on time travel one will ever come across.
The concept of lucid dreaming invites a great deal of formalistic play, and Vigalondo has fun with it employing freeze frames, speed ramping, sound shifting and many other cinematic devices in the dream space. The most aesthetic choice that he makes is also the simplest, The segments in the tangible world are shot in Betamax, thus, blurring the video with the fuzzy ambiance of Nick’s life, and the dream sequences are in wide screen digital with interesting and warm colors that provides a more appealing environment than the real life. That’s not to say the idea of that choice is novel, but the daddy of all video formats does make the film look different, and the strong division of the dream and the real world images enables the viewer to fully feel like Nick.
Although I do appreciate the director’s treatment of the material in the film, it is unfortunate that I do not have the same regard for the writer. Once briefly introducing the viewer to the clinical trial’s stakes and Nick’s take on the whole exercise, the plot remains within such boundaries for the rest of the movie, except for some flashback scenes. At least not until everything starts becoming messy and the distinction between the dream and reality gets blurred. The concept at least has a strong foundation, although it is often very hard to comprehend because the viewer is only given a small insight into the actual world prior to the rather abstract conclusion. Furthermore, the resolution redeems the story in a relation to the audience that counters all that they have witnessed. At this stage the film itself has become an ouroboros, endlessly circling with no explicit focus any longer.
Fortunately, Golding is steady as a rock at the centre of the film delivering his most commanding, emotionally charged performance to date. He more or less completely creates a void when he is supposed to be in early realistic scenes, wandering about only partially there. The more Daniela he sees he begins to dim, as he was looser here than he ever was before onscreen, leading to some beautiful comic moments and great chemistry with Grannò (who goes a bit too far into manic pixie dream girl territory). But, the film would be non-starter, had it not been for the gradually increasing effort he shows as his affection begins to slip from him again. The plot begins to thicken and the other characters begin to become crazier and things start falling apart, goldinghd’s Nick’s aimlessness haywire increases and goldinghd anchors the film emotionally and so much so that the film is not lost into total absurdity. Even when Daniela Forever gets to the point of self-destruction, goldinghd all but shatters it with is performance. He’s a dream that you wanna keep sleeping in.
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