There is such thing as a user guide's to existence if thinking for yourself isn't your strong suit. It goes more or less like this: obey your parents, go to school, get a degree in a respectable field, get married, buy a house, have kids, try to keep them alive and obedient, send them through college and wait for death. It's the default model to contemporary life, but it doesn't mean everyone is cut out for it. That is the idea behind Jim Sheridan's psychological thriller DREAM HOUSE. What happens when everything you've ever wanted turns on you? It makes for a cliché, yet kind of stylish movie with a fascination with Freudian symbolism and trauma. DREAM HOUSE is the quintessence of rainy afternoon entertainment. It's not really a compliment, I admit, it's more like an admission of overall competence.
Wil Atenton (Daniel Craig) quits his job at an editor at high profile New York publisher in order to spend more time with his wife Libby (Rachel Weisz) and his two daughters. They have recently move into their dream house in a quiet neighbourhood, on what seems to be Long Island. Wil's family is not exactly welcomed by the neighbours, though and his wife seems terrified of a latent, faceless menace roaming around the house. Will makes a horrible discovery then: five years ago, a man named Peter Ward brutally killed his family in the house that now belong to the Atentons. Ward spent five years in an insane asylum, but has been released into his old neighbourhood for lack of evidence and Wil is worried he is coming back to where he used to live.
Psychological thrillers are a dime a dozen and DREAM HOUSE doesn't stand out in any particular way. From THE AMITYVILLE HORROR to SINISTER, the ''house that keeeps secrets'' movie trope have been done over and over and several times better. To its credit, DREAM HOUSE doesn't verse into easy shock value for visual content. It's a movie that remains classy and intellectual at all times, but it's kind of an issue because the movie never really develops an identity of its own. Josie and I watched DREAM HOUSE about two weeks ago and realized halfway through that we had already seen it. That's not good. A movie can be good or bad, usually it's interesting enough for me to remember it. I didn't even review the thing when I first watched it. DREAM HOUSE has a huge problem with telling things that haven't been told before. It's classy, well-researched and deceptively realistic, but it's a story you've read/seen/heard about a hundred times before and that issue overrides its qualities.
I was fascinated with one aspect of DREAM HOUSE, though. Daniel Craig looks genuinely creepy in that movie. A vintage, 1996 Leonardo di Caprio haircut and his tight leather jacket are all it takes to transform him into this weird dude with disconnection issues about his own past. From one frame to another, Craig transforms from being a happy, responsible father to being a strange and lonely man. His shift of identity wasn't subtle, but it was efficient enough to give DREAM HOUSE a little something that was his own. Otherwise, not even the cleverness of its plot an save this movie from ether. It has a decent plot and great actors (Elias Koteas is an underrated Hollywood goodness), but the execution is all wrong. DREAM HOUSE is smart, cerebral and understated. It's not the way you film this kind of movie, though. Dumber movies will be remembered longer for their bolder approach.
DREAM HOUSE is a movie with many qualities, but one great, overriding problem : it's too safe. It's too neat, too well wrapped-up, therefore it never really developped an identity to be remembered for. The idea was brilliant: striking the fear of normalcy in the heart of the viewer. Providing some perspective on the calm and quiet America. DREAM HOUSE delivered its message, but nowhere near loud enough. It would've probably better fit a novel, where Daniel Craig's character's inner world could've been exposed better. DREAM HOUSE doesn't have the aggressive visual immediacy other psychological thrillers have. It shows flashes, but never establishes a proper identity. You won't walk away from it angry that it took two hours of your time, but you might feel this hollowness inside your chest when you feel like you could've done something more productive with your time. Sometimes, a movie can be clever and classy and yet just fall flat for lack of boldness. Psychological thrillers are not Jim Sheridan's thing, that about sums it up. It's not what he's going to be remembered for.