What Dreams May Come *** (1999, Robin Williams, Cuba Gooding Jr, Annabella Sciorra, Max von Sydow) – Classic Movie Review 1542

Director Vincent Ward’s ambitious 1999 romantic fantasy drama finds Robin Williams in serious mode, wanting to save the world through love and healing. Some audiences understandably reject it as a ghastly, kitsch, heart-sinking, New Age, pseudo-religious experience, but others find it deeply spiritual and profoundly moving.

In this story, with a screenplay by Ronald Bass based on the novel by Richard Matheson, Williams’s character Chris Nielsen is killed in a car crash, goes to heaven and finds it more amazing than he could have ever dreamed. But he is missing his beloved wife, Annie (Annabella Sciorra), waiting for her inside one of her artworks.

However, unable to live without him, she commits suicide and goes to hell. So Williams has to go look for her, risking an eternity in hell for the small chance that he will be able to bring her back to heaven.

Heaven seems hellish in this sugary sweet realisation – all birds, trees, flowers, lakes – whereas hell looks quite fun in its usual cliched way, like Dante’s Inferno. Joel Hynek, Nicholas Brooks, Stuart Robertson and Kevin Scott Mack‘s Oscar-winning Best Visual Effects are fabulous, earning the film respect, even for people who might not find it otherwise bearable.

It is a great-looking movie all round, with marvellous production designs that won the Excellence in Production Design Award at the Art Directors Guild in 1999. Full kudos, then to production designer Eugenio Zanetti, supervising art directors Jim Dultz and Tomas Voth, and art director Christian Wintter.

Max von Sydow and Cuba Gooding Jr also star, as The Tracker and Albert Lewis. Also in the cast are Jessica Brooks Grant, Josh Paddock, Rosalind Chow, Lucinda Jenney, Maggie McCarthy, Wilma Bonet, Matt Salinger and Carin Sprague.

It runs 109 minutes, is made by Interscope, is released by PolyGram and Entertainment, is shot by Eduardo Serra, is produced by Barnet Bain and Stephen Deutsch, is scored by Michael Kamen, and is set decorated by Cindy Carr.

Chris Nielsen’s fictional grave is located in Mount View Cemetery in Oakland, California. Nearby is a real grave for an Anna Nielsen and her husband. The film declares: ‘The persons and events in this production are fictitious. No similarity to actual persons, living, dead or reincarnated is intended or should be inferred.’

Tragically dear Robin Williams was found dead in his home in Tiburon, California, on Monday August 11 2014, aged 63. The cause of death was believed to be suicide via asphyxiation. He had been battling depression and recently entered 12-step rehab for drug abuse. He won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 1997 for Good Will Hunting, and won two Emmys, four Golden Globes, five Grammys and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. Mrs Doubtfire (1993) was perhaps his most enduring character. He was gearing up to reprise his role in a sequel.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1542

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