Quentin Tarantino might be wacky, but there’s a method to his madness. Although the ethics of his films are often questionable, his extravagant style is supported by solid narrative structure, steady character development, and themes that are accessible to the audience. In other words, his movies have both style and substance. To imitate Tarantino’s style without maintaining a substantive story would be to create an unbalanced and inaccessible movie that keeps the audience at a distance — and that’s exactly what happens with Dreaming Hollywood. This odd and ambitious film from first-time feature writer and director Frank Martinez is a peculiar animal that revels in absurdity, surrealism, grime, sweat, and decay. It’s the kind of movie in which, for better or worse, style takes the lead. While Dreaming Hollywood has a number of strong elements, it never quite reaches its full potential.
Dreaming Hollywood starts off as a textbook imitation of Tarantino’s style. There’s voice-over narration, an ominous and slightly twangy score, a desolate landscape, unflattering camera angles, confusing jumps between intertwined plotlines, and self-deprecating humor that arises from uncomfortable situations. From the dust of the grungy landscape arises our main character, Ray Balfi (Turk Matthews), a socially awkward and childlike ex-convict with a big dream: becoming a screenwriter. While waiting for his big break, he’s making ends meet as a drug dealer in a complex network of competing crime bosses and corrupt cops. He’s just finished the screenplay for an animated movie called The Dog’s Meow, which he sends out to 100 studios. Things take a sharp turn, both dramatically and stylistically, when Ray realizes that his beloved screenplay, or “movie screenplay script,” as he calls it, has been stolen by a rogue studio. At this point, the Tarantino-style narrative breaks down into an absurd sequence that is part fever dream, part flashback, and part cinematic stream of consciousness. Then, much like a Tarantino film, the stylistic awkwardness gives way to violence.
There’s plenty of inherent charm and sentiment in this story, and the overall plot map is quite clever. The movie requires its audience to pay close attention as it jumps between realistic scenes, dream sequences, and what appear to be drug-induced collective hallucinations. While these narrative jumps aren’t necessarily a bad thing, the story is padded with so much stylistic fluff that it’s difficult to follow. The first half of the movie is intriguing, quirky, humorous, and fun, but it’s offset by odd editing choices and meandering dialogue. The sudden cuts are more jarring than effective, and the peculiar dialogue doesn’t pack the punch that it was intended to. Plus, the strange side characters don’t add much to the story other than absurdity for absurdity’s sake. Dreaming Hollywood can’t decide whether it wants to be a crime drama with a complex plot or a surrealist piece with little to no plot — in fact, it tries very hard to be both. As a whole, the movie is like one long journal entry — every word is meaningful and important to the author, and snippets of it are brilliant, but it hasn’t been shaped and edited into something that’s accessible to everyone else.
One of those more brilliant snippets is Ray himself. In terms of craft and technique, Ray is one of the strongest parts of the movie. He’s just downright interesting to watch – and this is mostly due to Matthews’ dedicated performance. Matthews embraces Ray’s childlike quirks and makes his odd dialogue sound natural. Much like the overall cinematography, Matthews isn’t afraid to get ugly. He doesn’t shy away from Ray’s awkwardness and immature emotions, but he doesn’t go over the top. Ray is also interesting to watch because he’s completely out of touch with the world around him, and his misunderstandings about the real world make for some charming and chuckle-worthy moments. Plus, he’s dead-set on getting his screenplay made into a movie, and his optimistic determination is endearing.
But Ray is also a controversial character, and he’ll set off your incel radar faster than Joaquin Phoenix in Joker. At first, his childlike approach to the world is charming — but his immature emotions don’t get him very far. He’s so focused on his own little world that he’s oblivious to the needs and troubles of others. He’s quick to blame the people around him for his misfortunes — and when he doesn’t get his way, he turns to violence. Plus, there’s something sinister about the way he looks at and speaks to Maureen (Madelyn Allen), a local sex worker whom he frequently visits. As the events of the story unfold, his actions toward her become more and more disturbing. Dreaming Hollywood gives its audience the difficult task of weighing Ray’s childlike innocence with his distasteful and, at times, horrific actions.
Over the course of 122 minutes, Dreaming Hollywood comes close to greatness over and over again. It frequently teases the line between meaningless chaos and artistic absurdity — and as soon as we think the film is going to cross that barrier, it shrivels up on itself and retreats into nonsensical dialogue. It’s a memorable celebration of style, but it lacks the supportive substance needed to be accessible to an audience.
