patronizing

Rating: 7/10 (11 January 2002)

Spoilers, interpretation:
I really liked this movie until the patronizing ending. The audience is treated like morons. The movie ends, and then for some reason the makers feel the need to tack on an extra forty-five minutes to explain the movie. Maybe they thought it'd make more money if it was dumbed down a bit? Possibly, but I think the biggest motivating factor was the need for a more romanticized ending. You can't very well let the audience leave in a gloomy mood because they think David will remain in his nightmare forever, can you?

I can tell you how to fix this movie: just don't add any unnecessary emotionalism. Don't lie to the audience and pretend that this a happy movie. To do this, there is a simple solution: end the movie when David takes his psychologist to L.E. Go all the way through with the little movie presentation, and then have the psychologist ask David once again, "Did you sign something with these people?" David looks on with a blank/confused/terrorized face, and the movie ends. This is the ideal ending because at this point, everything in the movie is explained. Instead we get forty-five minutes of re-explanation, patronization.
Yet there are two new sub-themes added in the extra time. They are new, unnecessary, and done for the sake of drama, melodrama really. First, David kills himself. There is absolutely no reason for this. He has a malady that cannot be fixed, therefore he could just as easily have himself frozen without the suicide. David's death is contrived pathos. It also works to consummate his relationship with Sofia. Aww, how nice, she still loves him, "she knew him better than anyone else" even though she only saw him once - more pathos. Second, there is the ending in which David decides that real life is better than dream, continuing along in that naive Matrixesque vein. Again, this is just pointless melodrama because tragedies don't sell. It's dishonest and denial and patronizing , but "the answer to 99 of 100 questions is money."
Two flagrant examples of patronization. First, the L.E. lady tells David that he can be forever in a dream and David asks, "Couldn't it be a nightmare?" Moments later he reaches an epiphany and shouts "This is a nightmare!" Second, standing on the roof, David asks, "I set up this whole scenario didn't I?" "Yes," the dream technician replies, "you had to face your fear of heights." These are examples of stating the obvious, spelling it out for you, treating you like children, that the ending is wrought with.

Technical problems. In cryonization, the brain is dead. Hence, no dreams are possible. A coma would have been the rational choice. Plus it would have added interest to have the entire movie last one moment ("You can change your life in a moment") than 150 years; not to mention the fact that it would have made Sofia's "Hello David" upon awakening realistic. Also, there is the problem that by definition, a lucid dream is one that the dreamer is aware he is having. The movie makes it seem that the entire dream is lucid, while only the ending, after he returns to L.E. is.
During the movie I was planning on giving it a 9, but after that ending I lowered my rating to a 7. The fact that I'm more of an interpreter than a reviewer probably plays a role.