MEAN DREAMS

Canada, 2016, 108 minutes, Colour.
Sophie Nelisse, Josh Wiggins, Bill Paxton, Joe Cobden, Colm Feore.
Directed by Nathan Morlando.

Mean Dreams is quite an effective drama.

It focuses on two young adults, older teenagers. Jonas is a local, works hard on his father’s poor farm. He encounters Casey in the woods, searching for her dog. Both are attracted towards each other, become friends, he showing her around the town. However, he discovers that she is physically abused by her dominating father, a policeman on the move and settling into the area.

The policeman is played by Bill Paxton in one of his final roles. Canadian actors Josh Wiggins and Sophie Nelisse play the young couple. Sophie Nellise won awards for her performance in Monsieur Lazhar and appeared also in Pawn Sacrifice as well as The Book Thief. (A younger sister, Isabelle Nelissse, appeared in Mama and had a very strong role with Laura Dern in The Tale.)

Jonas, spying on Casey’s father, discovers that he does money deals – and shoots the helmeted bikies he meets with. Jonas takes an opportunity to take the bag with the money, and urge Casey to escape with him. The film shows their coping, buying a gun, escaping on a bus which is stopped by the police, and discovering that the Chief of police (Colm Feore) is in partnership with Casey’s father.

Some action sequences, a finale involving Casey confronting her father – and the young couple going into, one hopes, a better future.

The film takes advantage of the Canadian countryside, fields and crops, the woods, the lakes.

1. An interesting and well-made drama? The young adults? Their flight? Family abuse? Police and criminals and corruption?

2. The Canadian settings, the emphasis on the open fields, the countryside, the forests? The lakes? The contrast with the homes, the barns, warehouses? Gas stations? Authentic feel? The musical score?

3. The introduction to Jonas, walking through the woods, his age, the encounter with the dog, with Casey, the immediate friendship, cycling with her, showing her the town? The attraction? His work on the farm, poverty conditions, his suspicious mother, his hard-working father and his expectations? Jonas and the encounter with Casey’s father, seemingly friendly, the later warning off, his return to the house, attacking the father, his being bashed?

4. Casey and her father, the death of her mother and its effect, talking about it with Jonas? With her father and his saying she was like a mother? Police, upholding the law, yet his brutality at home? The revelation about his deals and the money?

5. The Chief, his role in the town, Jonas making the complaint, the Chief fending it off, warning Jonas? The later revelation that he was in partnership with Wayne Carraway?

6. Jonas, the scenes at home, the mother and the television, his trying to talk frankly with his father, his father apprehensive, Jonas calling him a coward, his father warning him off? The later phone call and the father wanting reconciliation?

7. Jonas spying on Carraway? In the back of the truck, hiding, the deal with the bikies, Carraway shooting them? Stopping at the petrol station, Jonas seeing the bag with the money, taking it, urging Casey to go with him, the pursuit by Wayne? Going through the fields, camping out in the open, the tarpaulin and the rain, the personal conversation during the rain? Going to the motel? Their intimacy? Jonas going to the gun shop, persuading the owner to sell the gun, the bullets, teaching him how to shoot? The amount of money? The police tracking him down through the selling of the gun at a pawnshop?

8. The burying of the money? Casey not wanting to use the gun? Jonas upset? The irony that she buried it with the money and was able to dig it up and confronts her father?

9. The pursuit by the Chief, Carraway catching up with them? Their travelling on the bus, the police stopping the bus? Jonas being shot? In the car? The chief and his putting the Valium in the drinks, taking the money and leaving?

10. Jonas, his being shot, Casey pulling the gun at the pharmacy, tending his wound?

11. Carraway, wanting the money, Jonas tied up in the car, Casey digging up the money, the confrontation with the gun – and this being against her principles and hopes – her father trying to be persuasive, her shooting him?

12. The two, getting a lift, their future?