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Cinematic dreaming Dream With the Fishes is a spirited feature debut by MATTHEW HAYS
In Finn Taylor's Dream With the Fishes, Arquette further fleshes out his range. He plays a neurotic, depressed Peeping Tom, thrilled by the sexual hijinks of a couple who live within view. His neighbour, played by Brad Hunt, is aware that he and his mate (Kathryn Erbe) are being watched. Arquette is consumed with grief and soon decides to take his own life. Hunt catches up with him as Arquette is poised to jump off a bridge, reminding him of just how awful the drop will be if he takes the final leap. Hunt makes a pact with Arquette: he'll give Arquette a fatal dose of pills if Hunt gets Arquette's flashy watch. It all sounds rather sordid, but upon their return Hunt gives Arquette a batch of vitamins, telling him they're sleeping pills (in one of the film's funnier scenes, Arquette rushes to the hospital to have his stomach pumped, convinced he is overdosing). For many, the buddy movie may be a dead end in terms of appeal. The scenario's been done to death, from the Hope-Crosby road movies to the deliriously dreadful cop buddy films that seem to permeate virtually every filmgoing season. But Taylor takes some clever risks with his screenplay. His protagonists aren't really likable at all. They're offbeat, abrasive characters whose motivations aren't always crystal-clear to the audience. This is quite a risk for a film that could easily descend into a rampant sentimentality-fest, and a film that must rely--at least to an extent--on some level of audience identification with the folks onscreen. Soon after Arquette's life has been saved by Hunt, we learn that Hunt has a terminal illness and only has weeks to live. The two set off on a road trip during which Hunt wants to realize all of his dreams. (The trip allows them to meet up with one of the film's better supporting players, Cathy Moriarty, hilarious as Hunt's retired-stripper aunt.) Dream With the Fishes was in the official selection of Sundance this past year, and it typifies the indie fest's obtuse tastes. Basically, a bunch of very jaded film critics show up at the fest and, after being inundated year-round with studio-produced, audience-tested crap, rave about the offbeat low-budget fare brought to the Utah site. Many of the films get rather overrated. Premiere magazine, for example, may have gone overboard when they described Dream With the Fishes as "Timothy Leary meets Fellini." Fishes is, however, an extremely well-acted, pleasingly eccentric take on male bonding. Dream with the Fishes is now playing at the Cinéma du Parc |
The Arquette family is rapidly becoming like the Baldwins or the Fondas. New clan members keep popping up, vaguely familiar through their DNA links to their more familiar siblings and surprising us. The latest Arquette whose star is rapidly rising is David, hilarious in last year's Scream and moving in the indie film Johns.