Movies - What Dreams May Come

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	Movies - What Dreams May Come

What Dreams May Come is a 1998 drama film, starring Robin Williams, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Annabella Sciorra. Max von Sydow also appears. The movie is based on the 1978 novel of the same name by Richard Matheson, and was directed by Vincent Ward. The title comes from a famous line in Hamlet's soliloquy in Act 3, scene 1 (To be, or not to be). Scenes in the movie, as well as the plot outline in the novel, contain several allegorical references to Dante Alighieri's 1308 epic poem The Divine Comedy. The movie won the Academy Award for best visual effects category.

The film was released by PolyGram Filmed Entertainment.

This film is one of the few movies to be shot largely on Fuji Velvia film, known among landscape photographers for its vivid color reproduction.

Characters

Williams plays Chris, a pediatrician. Sciorra plays his wife Annie, who runs an art gallery. They have two school-age children (Ian and Marie), a housekeeper (Angie) and a dog (Katie).

Cuba Gooding plays Albert, a character who proves to be more complex than we are initially led to believe.

Plot summary

The movie opens with Chris and Annie's meeting on a lake near Switzerland. The viewer is then treated to a quick montage describing their courtship and marriage.

When Chris's son and daughter are killed in a car accident, Annie becomes mentally unstable. She attempts suicide by cutting her wrists, and enters a mental hospital. Chris helps her the best he can, and finally she recovers. However, on an anniversary of her recovery, Chris is killed in yet another car accident.

Chris experiences life after death, although it takes him a while to accept that it's more than a dream. A handsome African-American man, Albert, (Gooding) guides him through his grief and confusion, and then shows him the beauty of the heavenly realm. At first, Chris believes Albert to be his friend and mentor from his medical residency, whom he calls "Doc." Albert guides Chris to an understanding of his condition, but even he is surprised when a glorious purple tree appears in Chris's personal section of heaven. It turns out that the tree matches a new painting of Annie's; the two are soul-mates, and anything she paints appears in Chris's heaven. Unfortunately, Annie destroys the painting in a fit of despair, and the beautiful tree withers.

After getting adjusted to the spirit world, Chris meets a beautiful Asian woman who shows him a children's realm in heaven. She asks Chris to share a memory with her, and he tells her about teaching his daughter, Marie, to play chess. In turn, she explains that she took the form of a stewardess because her father once admired that stewardess' special beauty. Suddenly, Chris recognizes their location as a diorama his daughter loved in life, and she reveals she is Marie. On earth, she was tom-boyish and wanted to look more feminine when she grew up. In the heaven of What Dreams May Come, a person is able to achieve their lifelong desires, and appear however they wish.

As this is happening, Annie's depression deepens, and in her torment, she takes poison. Albert sadly breaks the news to Chris of his wife's death. At first Chris is able to find joy in the terrible news, as he thinks that his wife is now free from her emotional pain on earth and that he can soon meet her in the afterlife. His hope quickly turns to anger when Albert explains the reality of the situation. In the afterlife of What Dreams May Come, suicides are trapped by their own despair into hell. Chris rebels against this, but Albert claims there is no judgement, no laws; it is simply the nature of suicides. This is a deliberate reference to Dante Alighieri's Inferno cantica, where the seventh level of hell is reserved for sins of violence -- including violence against one's self. The punishment for those who commit suicide in Dante's Inferno is to spend eternity in the body of a tree.

Chris boldly resolves to journey into hell itself and rescue his wife. Albert is infuriated, wanting Chris to forget such a painful and impossible quest. According to him, no one has ever brought a suicide back from hell. However, Chris is undaunted, and Albert agrees to help find Chris a "tracker". (Very appropriately played by Max von Sydow.) A tracker is a soul who can help find other souls; he provides Chris spiritual guidance to help him "tune in" to Annie's presence in hell.

The group then descends to hell. The damned are pictured acting out their sins, failures, and fears over and over again, without any hope of understanding their situation or breaking free of their misery. Chris attempts to focus his concentration on Annie, but finds himself instead remembering his son, Ian. The brilliant and meticulous Chris had always found it difficult not to show disappointment in his less-gifted son, and in a rain-swept woods one day, they had it out. Despite their differences, though, Chris and Ian achieved a resolution that day, with Chris telling his son, "If I was going through fucking HELL, I'd only want one person in the fucking whole god damn world by my side."

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