If there’s something you can always say about Spanish filmmaker Nacho Vigalondo’s films, it’s that they never follow a traditional path. Often, his work explores heady themes such as love, grief, and trauma, but always by taking us into some trippy headspace, whether it be timeloops, kaiju manifestations, or high-tech surveillance. In Daniela Forever, Vigalondo explores memory, imagination, and sadness through dream therapy, or in this case, the fascinating practice of lucid dreaming.
Daniela Forever stars Henry Golding as Nick, A British DJ in Madrid who is grieving the loss of his girlfriend, Daniela, played by White Lotus star Beatrice Grannò. At a friend’s urging, Nick decides to take part in a clinical study of an experimental drug that causes lucid dreams. But this study must be done in a very specific way, with strict rules to follow. Nick, however, flaunts those rules and instead uses the drug to transport himself into his dreamscape where he can bring Daniela back and be with her.
For those unaware, lucid dreaming involves being aware that you are indeed inside of a dream, allowing you a certain amount of control over it. It seems like something out of science-fiction, but in reality there are people practiced enough that they can experience lucid dreaming whenever they want to. Pretty cool, and Vigalondo is clearly fascinated with the subject. Nick is, in some ways, like a stand-in for Vigalondo who is attempting to understand, to deconstruct, the logic of lucid dreaming. Utilizing different aspect ratios to clearly delineate between reality and the dream world, Vigalondo seems much more at home inside of Nick’s head than outside of it.
Most of the film involves Nick constructing his dreams to resemble his reality. But the world he creates is built on fundamental memories. If he’s seen it or experienced it, he can build it. However, things he hasn’t seen leave only an empty void, so streets he’s never walked or items in a store that he’s never seen, are only gray blank spaces waiting to be filled. The irony is that Nick, in his attempt to escape the pain of real life, needs to soak in as much of it as possible to enhance the fantasy of his dreams. He is, in essence, living for something completely artificial.
Nick is an interesting, wildly imperfect guy, though. A bit selfish, conceited, and controlling, he doesn’t like it when the people of his dreams, including Daniela, begin to develop attributes he didn’t instill in them. For instance, Daniela is an artist, but when she begins to create art that he’s never seen before, he doesn’t like it. He also dismisses her when she starts questioning him and his opinions. Daniela Forever resembles in some ways the 2012 comedy Ruby Sparks, in which a fictional dreamgirl comes to life and her creator can’t deal with her growing independence. When Daniela starts connecting with one of her past lovers, it becomes too much for Nick to handle.
In the same way that Vigalondo’s brilliant 2015 film Colossal explored trauma and abuse through Anne Hathaway’s shared consciousness with a Japanese kaiju, Daniela Forever looks at toxic masculinity and control through lucid dreaming. Nick controls every version of Daniela that we experience, so our interpretation of her is totally through his eyes. We never seen who she actually was, and by the way he treats her in the dream world, it’s clear that he’s not all that interested in who she was as a person. Which makes us wonder why he’s so fixated on her now, controlling her even beyond the grave. What does he actually like about her? It’s not her creativity, or spark of personality. For example, when they have a threesome with another woman, and Daniela requests to have another male next time, Nick grants her wish by constructing a double of himself. Granted, coital bliss with a pair of Henry Goldings would be the wish of a lot of women (and men), but Nick is just being a dickhead who doesn’t care what Daniela wants, only his own desires.
Ultimately, Vigalondo eases back on the throttle and Daniela Forever becomes too message heavy and sweet, with Nick’s appreciation for life and the people in it happening too quickly. Golding is a good actor but he’s too understated and reserved for the role of Nick, making us wonder why someone like Daniela would fall for him. Grannò’s soulful, passionate performance keeps things lively, and so does Vigalondo’s playful humor and his sheer excitement over lucid dreaming. Daniela Forever doesn’t quite measure up to Vigalondo’s craziest, most inventive efforts, but he is such a unique creative voice that you will never feel wronged for sticking with him.
Daniela Forever opens in theaters on July 11th.
