Dreamland

The humble American trailer park has acquired an almost mythical status on the cinema screen, at least to viewers who do not live in the US. Often surrounded by wide open vistas of rural wasteland or towering mountains, the scenery lends itself to wide angled shots that can be mightily impressive. Conversely the inner workings of trailer parks and the intense dynamics that can arise amongst the close-knit community of inhabitants can provide overly dramatic conflicts that lend themselves to the often harsh yet beautiful surrounding landscapes. Contemporary high profile uses of such settings often cast the trailer park as a lawless no man’s land in which anything can happen, and the grim consequences of actions often come back as extreme violence. The Coens’ ‘No Country for Old Men’ (2007) featured a main character, the misguided Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), seeking stolen drug money as a way out of his sparse living situation, while Tarantino used the trailer park of Michael Madsen’s character in ‘Kill Bill Volume 2’ (2004) as the stage for some of the more visceral scenes this notoriously gruesome director has ever shot, including the sequence in which the Bride is buried alive. Further back than this David Lynch has intermittently used the trailer park as an area of unabashed strangeness, and in the case of ‘Wild at Heart’ (1991), a black hole of evil with Bobby Peru (Willem Defoe) as it’s insanely grinning centre, one of the most unpleasant characters ever committed to celluloid. At the opposite end of the genre spectrum Hollywood filmmakers have exploited the stereotype of the ‘trailer trash’ population for comedic effects, thus perpetuating the idea that inhabitants are ill-educated and lacking in every day social graces.

One thing all of the above examples have in common however is the fact that the characters living in these mobile home communities either aspire to leave or find them self-confined there due to some past trauma of wrongdoing. ‘Dreamland’ (2006), the New-Mexico trailer park setting for the film of the same name, is a place that features both types of character. However, the fractured relationships of the main characters living there seem to prevent them from leaving, whilst the ones who are settled seem happy to fritter their lives away apart from popular culture and social life. Audrey (Agnes Bruckner), the protagonist who commands the most screen time, is the most tragic case of this conflict of desire. She writes poetry every day and seems to harbour a vast talent that has gotten her accepted into a college in the city, unbeknownst to her alcoholic father. In an interesting twist of traditional patriarchal dynamics, Audrey acts as a reluctant mother figure to her father Henry (John Corbett), who drinks and smokes constantly in an effort to forget the death of her mother, the love of his life. Completing this unconventional family unit is fellow Dreamland dweller Calista (Kelli Garner) a name she has chosen for herself in keeping with her rather self-consciously written quirky character. She dreams of one day being an American beauty queen, despite the MS that is slowly and tragically taking her life. Audrey then, despite her supposed writing talent, has to stay in the trailer park caring for this bizarre son and daughter in the shape of her dad and her ill best friend. In between these duties and her bouts of poetry writing she reluctantly works at the nearby gas station, presumably the only local employer, where she enjoys a casual if unfulfilling sexual relationship with the other attendant, the spaced-out nerd Abraham (Brian Klugman).

Conflict arrives in the shape of Mookie (Justin Long), the son of a new couple who have recently entered Dreamland. He is a breezy and easy-going person and a talented basketball player on the verge of going to college on a sports scholarship. Both Calista and Audrey predictably fall for Mookie thus establishing a rift in their unusually close relationship. Mookie is initially attracted to the young Lolita-esque Calista and they begin a cheerily romantic courtship. However, Mookie soon starts to fall for Audrey in a deeper way as he is intrigued by her poetry and her strong character. This conflict forms the basis of the film’s light narrative tensions, but it unfortunately never really ascends to a dramatic level worthy of the cinematic medium, leaving the film often seeming like a well-shot trailer park set episode of ‘Dawson’s Creek’. Even though the closed community of Dreamland is quite clearly starved of young male suitors, Mookie is so all-round nice and ineffectual that it is hard to imagine his arrival would cause this much of a stir. Justin Long is an actor who has carved out a niche for himself playing likable comic foils in such Hollywood fare as ‘Dodgeball’ (2004) and as Bruce Willis’ sidekick in ‘Die Hard 4:0’ (2007) but this film lays bare the fact that he may be lacking when it comes to more serious American Indie film type role. Kelli Garner plays Calista as her usual Lolita style temptress as seen in Mike Mills’ ‘Thumbsucker’ (2005) but here her medical condition lends her character a tragic depth that she mines quite well. Still her dialogue often appears laboured in its attempts to show her as free-spirited and kooky: during one of their many conversations in Dreamland’s tiny backyard pool Calista dreamily states that her perfect boyfriend would either be “Jesus Christ or Bob Marley”. This statement although intentionally overblown exposes Mookie’s shortcomings as a potential partner for her, as he is a simple all-American boy and so about as far removed from those two iconic figures as can be.

Calista is not the only character flawed by the overly sentimental script. Audrey’s father Henry is a stereotypical drunk romantic still pining for that first intense flourish of love which has seemingly been rendered infinite by his wife’s untimely death. While witnessing Calista and Mookie’s initial dates he utters the rather trite sentiment, “the only thing better than kissing on a first date, is almost kissing on a first date”. Finally, Audrey too is prone to such sentimental outpourings, more-so because of the poetry she constantly writes, and which regularly takes over the film as a voiceover. Her poetry is presented as an escape from her impoverished surroundings, as something beautiful and creative arising from the dry arid place in which she lives. However, like the rest of the script the poetry is clichéd and hackneyed. Whilst she is obviously intelligent and mature, more so than her father, it is hard to see how such ramblings would get her an assured place into college. The plot reaches predictable peaks and dramatic moments as Audrey and Mookie fall for each other behind Calista’s back. Calista eventually has an accident though and all of the gang’s previous confrontations are eventually smoothed out. Sensing that he is suddenly needed following Calista’s accident and the realisation that Audrey may eventually leave Dreamland to pursue her education, her father turns his life around from lovelorn alcoholic man-child to doting and considerate parent so quickly that it is completely unbelievable. It is not that any of these characters are un-likable but rather that they are clichéd and not interesting enough to warrant this much screen time. Thematically ‘Dreamland’ has great similarities to Lasse Hallstrom’s ‘What’s Eating Gilbert Grape’ (1993) but with the gender roles reversed: Juliette Lewis is an alluring female trailer-traveller visiting the small town inhabited by Johnny Depp’s Gilbert Grape who similarly cares for his handicapped brother and so is always conflicted about leaving his small community. ‘What’s Eating Gilbert Grape’ is similarly soapy and overly sentimental but features the considerable acting talent of big-name stars Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Juliette Lewis. Although they are all Hollywood players their presence lifts Gilbert Grape’s formulaic script to a slightly higher level, something that the main actors in ‘Dreamland’ struggle to achieve.

The film fares considerably better in stylistic and aesthetic terms. As stated at the beginning of this review the surrounding rural or outback style areas that trailer parks are situated are gifts to a talented cinematographer, and Dreamland is no exception. The film is filled with wide angle shots of white clouds drifting slowly over a wide-open blue sky or of storms brewing over towering mountains, each of which lend a degree of drama and tension while on the other hand languid dreamy shots of the wide open dessert plains of nothingness poetically suggest the dreary isolation the characters feel better than Audrey’s actual poetry ever does.

First time director Jason Matzner appears to be aiming for the dreamy poetry and feminine reverie mastered in Sofia Coppola’s first three films. ‘Dreamland’ even explores similar themes of feminine longing and escape although here the characters truly are poor unlike Coppola’s often over-privileged-but-lost subjects. Many of the voiceover passages when Audrey recites her poetry are cut to stylised montages of the girls dancing framed by trees, grass, fireworks, or camera sun-flares, very similar to those used in Coppola’s ‘The Virgin Suicides’ (1999). However, Tom Willett’s script lacks Jeffrey Eugenides’ delicate prose and some non-descript musical choices mean that the sequences do not achieve the same beautifully transcendent effect as Coppola’s superior film. Having said this Matzner creates one brilliant scene that fuses music and film perfectly in the way that so many similarly inclined young directors often do. Following Calista and Mookie’s first date the trailer park inhabitants enjoy a cordial and relaxed barbecue, but it is clear to us the viewer that Audrey’s jealousy of Calista is beginning to manifest. This sequence is set to Mazzy Star’s classic ‘Fade into You’, it’s hushed, faintly Americana-esque longing perfectly complimenting the mood. Although it occasionally looks and sounds very appealing unfortunately ‘Dreamland’ fails to inspire much interest or excitement and perhaps Matzner’s lack of work since this debut film confirms this. It looks for an element of poetry and beauty in the geographically and culturally isolated community of the trailer park that it rarely achieves, much like Audrey fails to in her trite and sentimental prose.

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Country: USA
Budget: £
Length: 88mins

Filmography:
‘The Virgin Suicides’, 1999, Sofia Coppola, American Zoetrope
‘What’s Eating Gilbert Grape’, 1993, Lasse Hallström, JandM Entertainment
‘Thumbsucker’, 2005, Mike Mills, Bob Yari Productions
‘Die Hard 4:0’, 2007, Len Wiseman, Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
‘Dodgeball’, 2004, Rawson Marshall Thurber, Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
‘Wild At Heart’, 1991, David Lynch, PolyGram Filmed Entertainment
‘Kill Bill Volume 2’, 2004, Quentin Tarantino, Miramax Films
‘No Country for Old Men’, 2007, The Coen Brothers, Paramount Vantage

Pub/2008

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'Irma Vep', 1996, directed by Olivier Assayas
'Irreversible', 2002, directed by Gaspar Noe