What Dreams May Come (1998)
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A man travels through the realms of the afterlife to rescue his wife from a hell created by her own despair.
The story
While vacationing in Switzerland, pediatrician Chris Nielsen meets artist Annie Collins. They marry and have two children, Ian and Marie. Their idyllic life ends when the children die in a car crash. Four years later, Chris is also killed in a car crash. Unaware that he is dead, and confused that no one will interact with him, Chris lingers on Earth as a ghost. He eventually moves on to a heaven created by his imagination. However, when he learns that his wife, Annie, has died by suicide and is trapped in a hell based on her own pain, he decides to journey into the underworld to find her.
Full plot (contains spoilers)
After his death, Chris finds himself in a heaven shaped by his memories of his wife. When he learns that Annie has died by suicide and is trapped in a hell constructed from her own suffering, he journeys into the underworld with a companion. He finds her in a twisted version of their home where she suffers from amnesia. To save her, Chris chooses to join her in her hell, which causes her to regain her memories and transform his nightmare into his reality. They are then reunited with their children in heaven. An alternate ending based on the novel suggests they are reincarnated to live together again in new lives.
- First release year
- 1998
- Runtime (minutes)
- 113
- Production countries
- United States
- Original languages
- English
- Directors
- Vincent Ward
- Writers
- Ronald Bass · screenplay
- Cast and characters
- Robin Williams · Chris; Annabella Sciorra · Annie; Cuba Gooding Jr.; Max von Sydow
- Genres
- fantasy; drama
- Themes
- grief; suicide; afterlife
- Tone and mood
- surreal
- Setting
- The afterlife, including a heaven based on paintings and a hell based on a twisted home.
- Premise and plot tags
- metaphysical fiction
- Source material / true-story basis
- 1978 novel by Richard Matheson
- Content notes
- suicide
- Reception
- The film received mixed reviews, with praise for its scenery but criticism for the plot. It was a box-office bomb.
- Reported review scores
- Rotten Tomatoes · score: 5.70 · scale: 10 · review count: 69; CinemaScore · score: B · scale: A+ to F
- Awards and nominations
- Academy Award · Best Visual Effects · win; Art Directors Guild Award · Excellence in Production Design · win; Academy Award · Best Art Direction · nomination
- Production trivia
- The title is from a line in Hamlet's 'To be, or not to be' soliloquy.; The original prints of the film were lost in a fire at Universal Studios' backlot on June 1, 2008.
Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.
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