Somnium

by Hope Madden

Hollywood is one big nightmare. That’s essentially the plot of writer/director Rachel Cain’s feature debut, a dreamscape where you’re never certain what Gemma (Chloë Levin) is experiencing and what she’s imagining.

Levine’s cinematic presence, no matter the film, is wholly natural, utterly authentic. There’s nothing uncanny about her. Her humanity and vulnerability inform every moment she’s onscreen. That may be why she’s such a perfect central figure in horror films like The Ranger, The Transfiguration, and The Sacrifice Game. However unnatural the plot or nemesis, Levine is a profoundly human anchor.

In this surreal Hollywood fable—part Neon Demon, part Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, part Inception, part The Substance—Gemma leaves a small town in Georgia to chase her Hollywood dreams. Lonesome, rejected, lost and always one step away from homelessness and failure, she takes a job at an experimental sleep clinic where people dream their way into believing they can achieve their ideal future.

Gamma works nights, studying scripts and babysitting sleeping clients. By day she auditions, faces rejection, daydreams about her old life, and flirts with the possibly creepy, possibly benevolent Hollywood insider, Brooks (Jonathan Schaech).

But the daydreams are leaking into her waking moments, huge chunks of time keep disappearing, and there’s this contorted figure with a twisted spine she keeps catching in her peripheral vision.

Cain’s script lacks a little something in originality—hers is hardly the first cautionary tale about striking it out on your own in Hollywood. Still, in subverting the idea of big dreams, playing with the notion that perception is reality, and mining the vulnerability and predatory nature of those with and without power in Tinsel Town, she hits a nerve.

She leaves too much unresolved, which is frustrating. But scene by scene, Cain casts a spell both horrifying and hopeful. Though the entire ensemble is strong, Levine is her secret weapon. The film falls apart if you don’t feel protective of Gemma, if you don’t long for her to succeed. Characteristically, Levine has you in her corner, even when lurking doom waits behind her in the shadows.