EDIT: deleted my original review so i can rewatch the film and re-review it.
4 stars after re-watching it …
i originally learned about “The Dreamers” while looking for Eva Green sex scenes on AZNUDE and i saw that “The Dreamers” had plenty of Eva Green nudity and made note of that. later i was discussing erotic movies and / or Eva Green on Twitter and somebody suggested i watch “The Dreamers” in that context.
so i watched it … with the expectation that i am going to see an erotic movie. i wasn’t even necessarily looking for something to jerk off to but i was expecting at least something steamy …
i was disappointed, wrote a review accordingly and went to sleep …
but by the time i woke up i knew my review was not fair - i didn’t impartially evaluate the film but instead i judged it for failing to meet my expectations ( of a steamy erotic movie ) … but was it the movie’s fault that my expectations were wrong ?
so i decided to re-watch it, and i did - i watched it twice in the span of 2 days …
the second time around obviously i judged it for what it is, not for what i thought it was supposed to be … and i found it was pretty good …
the problem with “Dreamers” is that this movie is in some sense less than the sum of its parts … it has memorable characters and scenes but the plot is sort of lethargic and the ending is pretty much nonexistent …
of course that sort of goes with the genre of being an Indie / Art film … this isn’t a Tom Cruise or a Marvel blockbuster where Aliens attack and a hero saves the world, nor is it a Typical love story with a happy ending, nor is it even something like “Tirza” or “The War Zone” where some majorly fucked up things happen that shock the viewer …
instead “Dreamers” sort of drifts along with a sort of a Bohemian love triangle that isn’t going anywhere …
there is a point in the movie towards the end where we’re offered a glimpse at one possible ending that would be more in line with other films such as Lolita, Tirza or The War Zone, namely where things end up getting out of hand in a catastrophic fashion …
but really, The Dreamers is not that kind of film … in fact it’s basically the opposite … and you may feel cheated as a result … but again, that’s just the genre and what it was going for …
The Dreamers isn’t any kind of explosive story where massive tension blows up in the viewer’s face - it’s just a look at interesting characters in an interesting relationship where you simply get to look at beautiful people naked for about half the movie …
it really feels like a string of loosely related scenes which are viewed for their own sake rather a coherent storyline … not that it is somehow incoherent, but it simply has no obvious direction …
in a typical movie there is something called the character arc, for example in “The Edge of Tomorrow” Tom Cruise starts out as a coward but ends as a superhero, or in “Spirited Away” the little girl starts out as childish but ends as ready for adult life and so on …
or in other movies the characters all kill each other …
but in “The Dreamers” nothing like that happens … all the characters end the same way they started … only the viewer hopefully changes.
it’s almost like instead of having sex and blowing your load you just watch strippers for 2 hours but nothing actually happens … it’s … disappointing.
so it’s a voyeuristic experience - just watching good looking college kids in a love triangle in a huge apartment in Paris while the upper middle class parents are on a vacation for a month …
if you can see this movie in high quality it’s worth watching - it is beautifully shot and is visually a feast - but if you want to see it for the “plot” then i am afraid there isn’t much of that …
as i said i watched it twice and don’t regret it and wouldn’t mind seeing more movies like this … but at the same time you honestly could fall asleep watching it unlike something like “Lolita” that keeps you in suspense …
as weak as the ending is it’s still a good movie not just because of massive amounts of nudity with clear shots of dicks including a partial erection as well as close up shots of Eva Green’s pussy, two separate scenes in which she bleeds from it and countless scenes with her fully nude or with close ups of her breasts … the camera also spends a fair deal of time on her eyes and face as well.
instead the movie is good because overall the scenes and characters are all great, it’s just that there is no real story …
4 stars