Some images have become metonymic by nature, reflecting the political problems of today with little to no context needed. Such a shot opens Michel Franco’s newest offering, Dreams, and it is one of a huge truck abandoned next to a railway: illegal border-crossing. It rattles and shakes with the screams of people locked inside, clamoring for help; one already anticipates the dire condition the fugitives all are in once the police break open the back door. One of those “illegals” manages to escape amidst the chaos: a youngish, strong-looking man (Isaác Hernández) whose determination is made clear by every step he takes on that desolate road. We don’t know who he is, but he surely knows where he’s going, and there’s a fierceness to him that overpowers the pain he’s obviously in.
After hitchhiking to San Francisco, he breaks into the lavish house of Jennifer McCarthy (Jessica Chastain), who finds him sleeping in her bed the next morning, naked. Her silence betrays her, alluding to the fact that he is no random stranger and within a minute of waking up, Fernando is already on top of her with the long-lost lover’s fervor. “I want to take care of you,” Jennifer whispers, pulling up the curtain to a love story that spans countries and social classes. Before the audience can piece together the relationship timeline, Dreams gives more of the couple’s backstory through scenes of intense intimacy. Franco’s usual collaborators, cinematographer Yves Cape and editor Óscar Figueroa, use their trademark tense visual language previously reserved for violent outbursts to sculpt sexual sequences out of static long takes and forceful cuts. But the result is never harsh. Quite the contrary: when every instance of touch is fueled by such sizzling chemistry like that between Chastain and Hernández (and their two very assertive characters) those scenes swell with an insatiable yearning.
Yet life is love’s enemy. Jennifer is the daughter of multi-rich benefactor Michael McCarthy (Marshall Bell) and the family money holds all power while Fernando, no matter how talented a ballet dancer he is, will always be a paperless Mexican immigrant in the eyes of this clan. What we have is a case of impossible love (already one of the most potent dramaturgical devices) that’s full of pride and shackled by class prejudice. As a writer, Franco has hesitated to push his characters into morally ambiguous territories, but this may be his most masterful statement yet on complex power dynamics.
Dreams‘ economic storytelling––linear, with ellipses and a spectacular flashback / daydream sequence that shakes up the obvious realism––works less in service of the plot, more to highlight the submissive and dominant steaks in both Jennifer and Fernando: sexually, emotionally, and financially, they sway in a treacherous dance. Isaac Hernández (a Principal Dancer at the American Ballet Theatre) is a real revelation in his first feature-film role, combining levity and instinct with sentimental weight. The way he channels Fernando’s stubbornness into allure and charisma is perfectly matched by how gradually Chastain peels back her composure layer by layer. Her Jennifer is a genuine lover who’s burdened by the safety she so desperately clings to and in constant conflict with her desires. It’s easy to want everything when you can literally have everything you’d want, but the American actress goes to great lengths (physically and emotionally) to animate every single paradox in a character who’d otherwise be easily dismissed as spoiled. The two powerhouse performances at the heart of Dreams manage to stand so tall that it seems a love story like theirs can overpower even the trademark brutality one has learned to expect in every Michel Franco film.
Up until Franco premiered Memory in the main competition at Venice in 2023, people thought they knew what to expect of him. Since his 2009 debut Daniel and Ana, the Mexican director has been testing the limits of human relationships onscreen. In particular he’d zoom in on familial dynamics, how they tense and crack under pressure; in his film worlds, nobody comes out of it unscathed. Memory, though, was a first in more than one sense: the first collaboration with Chastain, but also the first glimpse of hope at the end of a Franco film. With it, and now its follow-up, it seems the filmmaker has left more space for love, potentially redemption. If Memory was deeply romantic, Dreams sets the romance on fire and its flames burn brighter than ever.
Dreams premiered at the 2025 Berlinale in Competition.