User reviews

It's a decent creepy cautionary horror tale reminding us that unintended consequences often accompany the best intentions. The film is another take on W. W. Jacobs', The Monkey's Paw. Unfortunately the 1980s slashers film has convoluted what younger people consider horror. Horror is equated to slasher horror films. But horror genre is much wider than this and traditionally consisted of cautionary tales about the evils that can result from tempting fate. Usually, these tales had a main idea behind it that could be applied to everyday life.

The film has good cinematography and the actors did a fine job. I personally enjoyed it. We just need to get past the nonsense that horror = blood splatter so that we get more original and creative stories on to film. If you are a mother, then you likely feel the sense of dread watching what happens in the film.

You can tell the negative reviewers were expecting a "horror movie" with "scares." Fever Dream is not a spooky ghost movie. It's a psychological drama with an element of magical realism. The story is very coherent and very clearly explained; it would only be confusing to someone who thinks "supernatural" elements must fit into a well established trope, like a curse or a haunting. The original novella had a more surreal, more disturbing sense of desperation, confusion and sadness that would be difficult to translate to film, and they didn't fully do it justice, but it's still competently made. Bottom line is that the book was better but the bad reviews are still mostly just clueless.

Argentines use this expression when they want to say that something or a situation is silly. My reaction to this film was this: How silly! From something very real: poisoning and environmental pollution by pesticides, a tangle is built with spirits, witches, transport of souls and many other nonsense. Something told me to stop watching the movie in the first half hour, but curiosity made me continue watching. What a waste of time! Don't make the same mistake I did. If you read this comment before seeing the movie, run away! The idea of mixing a real problem (environmental pollution) with nonsense about spiritism, lost souls and other "tonterias" results in a silly film. Beautiful locations, good performances, an efficient decoupage are of no use if the story being told is nonsense. Run!

Summary:

The director Claudia Llosa carries out a complex and disturbing story, quite faithful to the novel by Samanta Schweblin (both are co-writers of the film), a psychological thriller with edges of terror where the threats and the danger that tighten the rope of the "distance of rescue " between a mother and her little daughter could be located in fantastic elements, in the most real of worlds, or in both.

Review

Amanda (María Valverde) arrives at a country house to spend a vacation with her little daughter Nina. There she establishes a relationship with a neighbor, Carola (Dolores Fonzi), mother of a disturbing boy named David. From certain revelations from Carola, Amanda will perceive a growing sense of danger.

Of course, Fever Dream widely transcends this synopsis. It was a challenge to transfer to the cinema the extraordinary homonymous nouvelle of the Argentine Samanta Schweblin, given its complex narrative structure, which the film by Claudia Llosa (co-writer with the novelist) maintains and which makes the film retain a certain literary imprint.

This complexity has to do with several factors, basically with the point of view. The story is narrated and driven by an off-screen dialogue between Amanda and David, in which he precisely guides the former (and the viewer) on a journey through the extensive flash back that constitutes most of the film. It is not known where (either exactly when) this dialogue takes place, but it occurs at a critical moment for Amanda, in which David's voice forces her to search for the keys to understand what happened, to understand how it got there. It should be noted that there was no way to avoid that literary dialogue in off of a double narrator since it is essential for the structure and the sense of the story. The timelines, which come and go, and which at times open like a set of Chinese boxes, are complex but quite clear.

In this story Amanda mentions what she calls "rescue distance" (itle of the film and the novel in Spanish), which she understands as the maximum distance that can exist between a mother and her child so that she can keep him or her safe and which is perceived as an invisible thread that unites them and that reaches its maximum tension when that distance is reached and that can be broken if exceeded. The concept of distance as a limit that operates in a bond and that is a factor of anguish in the film, takes on a disturbing premonitory quality (the novel predates the covid pandemic) since it is inevitable to relate it to that of social distance and with other realities of a threatening environment.

Carola tells Amanda (who is waiting for her husband to arrive to join her vacation) what happened to her son, a disturbing story that, added to the voice-over story, will mark the climate of the entire history. In this way, Llosa carries out a complex and disturbing story about these two mothers and their children, a kind of psychological thriller with edges of terror where the threats and the danger that tighten the rope of the rescue distance between mother and daughter could be located in fantastic elements, in the truest of worlds, or both.

Valverde, Fonzi and the children are very good in their roles and the complex fragmentary narrative structure of the film is excellently assembled. The film exploits very well the beautiful exteriors where it takes place and which are also, in some way, essential protagonists of the story.

I must clarify that my vision of the film was somewhat "contaminated" because I read the book before. I can point out that the adaptation is quite faithful to the novel, although in it the sensation of terror is more suffocating because the story is more urgent. But also, having read it, the disturbing is perceived from before. That is why it is not a bad idea to see this movie again knowing where it is going.

I watched with English audio.

I assume it makes more sense in Spanish. The Spanish title does.

Rescue Distance. It is the "thread" that makes it make sense. It is repeated continuously. And somebody chose Fever Dream instead?!

I have more questions. And very few answers.

Madres made sense. The poetry in this film seems lost in translation.

Fever dreams ... or crazy reality? And caused by what exactly? I am still rather confused by many things depicted by the movie. That may be enticing or it may be annoying to you. Depending on how much time and will you have to fully take this in and digest it ... well that will determine how much you probably will like it.

You can't just watch this while doing something else. Like having your phone and doing stuff on it while "watching" the movie. I have done this with lesser titles, so I am not judging. Some movies are more than predictable and do not really glue you to the screen. This is different ...

Starts out mysterious and great. But shuts down and ends before ever beginning. Explanations left short and cut and suddenly the build up we've been expecting ends. It never evolves. And then it's just over.

For this entire movie, you watch people alternate between losing their minds over nothing, under-reacting to major issues, and rambling about crack-pot theories. But you keep watching because the story is told so well that you find yourself sucked into it.

Then at one instant, you'll realize that the entire thing is essentially just an anti-science rant that's based on a serious lack of understanding of numerous topics. And that's not even a spoiler. Because the actual topic is so moronic and far-fetched that you would never guess it with 1000 tries.

They should have just gone with "It's aliens.". It's just as dumb, but at least it makes sense.

Horses are dying. Birds are dying. Children are poisoned.

The ones who have been damaged say:"thread has already snapped" ..... We are far beyond the tipping point.

Mother's are looking for the answers.

Answer lies in the call from the nature: "Take us back to the green house(Earth)!"

Complex movie ..takes a while to process.

Fever Dream seems to be pieced together from fragments of other films, without it being possible to identify where and when things happen and to whom they happen. The movies seems more like a cold calculation to include all Spanish American nationalities so that no one feels excluded, and in the end they all are. It is a tedious but superficial film, with no merit beyond the occasional beauty of the odd isolated scene. A flawed, tenuous and irrelevant product.

I've never watched a movie with a rate under 6, but I'm making an exception for this. I like the storyline which makes me curious what happens next, even though makes me confused at the same time, but I don't really like the sad ending.

This isn't a horror film, however its one of those films the constantly builds up suspense that leads up to nothing, yet you keep watching it just in case it gets better.

Well it doesn't, and I wouldn't recommend this film.

I get it all and what they are trying to make : mysterious and kind of a spooky movie.

"Fever dream" is the name of the movie. The definition of a fever dream : very strange experience or situation, usually a bad one, that seems like a dream rather than like something that would really happen.

And that's what I felt when I saw the movie. Fine with movies with a open and kind of "not knowing what is going on" but come on - this is too weird and I could have made a movie like this while I was asleep ( a bad nightmare )...

Not so much a bad movie just not a horror movie as advertised. I read about it being some great new horror movie so I found it to be a disappointment!

I have a pretty high tolerance for "slow burn" or "thinkers," but this was really dull. I watched until the end just so I could get some fulfillment from the last hour and a half of boring-ness. And guess what? It was boring. Thinking about this movie makes me want to sleep. This movie is a fever dream of boredom and "Amanda" over and over from that kid. Watch something else.

IL-1, IL-6, and TNF-alpha stimulate hypothalamus to release Prostaglandins E2, and we have a fever.

So this movie was supposed to feel atmospheric and like a dream, as the title suggested. It was so dreamy that I almost fell asleep many times. Zzzzz. Granted that I was a bit sleepy going in, I still believed that this movie was Netflix's new dose of melatonin.

So yes, I hate this movie with a sleepy passion. It was supposed to build to something, and then it ended with nothing.

Overall, a waste of time. 2/10.

Either this movie is extremely disjointed and meaningless (yes, I understand the environmental pitch here), or I am too jaded to understand the significant impact this brilliant piece of cinematic excellence has made.... No.

This movie is extremely disjointed and meaningless.

The story is like getting lost in the woods. Many paths appear in front of you that look like it will take you somewhere but in the end, you are just lost. So much talk generating expectation for so little ending. Very frustrating.