Dream Lover - 1993 film review

Dream Lover is a thriller written and directed by Nicholas Kazan (son of the legendary director Elia Kazan, and himself an Academy Award nominee). I assumed the famous Bobby Darin song 'Dream Lover' would feature, but it was not to be, and this is certainly a film that confounded my expectations in quite a number of ways. 

It's a strange film in some respects, and over the years it has attracted both admiration (from the eminent critic Roger Ebert, for instance) and scorn. I can see both points of view and I find myself rather undecided on whether its strengths outweigh its flaws. I don't want to say too much about the flaws, because that would entail spoilers, but suffice to say that the sudden and melodramatic ending of the film seemed to me to be very unsatisfactory as well as unexpected (and I admit that I didn't expect it). I'm all in favour of twist endings, but this was one I didn't care for.

I was completely unfamiliar with the cast of the film, but James Spader, who plays a wealthy and charming young architect has evidently had a successful career. His character is called Ray Reardon, which added to the strangeness, since that's a name I associate with the famous snooker player. At the start of the film, Ray is getting divorced from his wife; although he struck her in a moment of anger, she still seems devoted to him. 

Soon Ray develops an obsession with a beautiful and enigmatic young woman, Lena Mathers (Madchen Amick). Their passionate relationship leads to marriage and children, but Lena is a mysterious character and Ray becomes increasingly puzzled about her, and for good reason. There were one or two elements of the film that reminded me of the brilliant Body Heat, in which another naive professional man becomes besotted with a gorgeous woman, but there's no doubt that Body Heat has stood the test of time much better.