Silver and the Book of DreamsSometimes you see a movie about dreams that forces you to reevaluate what those hours spent in bed mean on a grander scale. You might just consider whether the world of dreams represents some other version of ourselves, a deeper layer of our psyche...a shadow self, to put it in Jungian terms. And then you begin to reevaluate the world around you following this newfound revelation, asking yourself profound questions like, "who am I?" Silver and the Book of Dreams is not that movie. (Couldn't resist the sarcastic hook, so apologies, dear readers.)
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Although I could find precious little to verify this, it's my understanding that Silver and the Book of Dreams is adapted from a young adult fantasy novel, and boy, does it feel like it! The story goes that a pair of German sisters--that's our protagonist, Liv (Jana McKinnon), and her sister, Mia (Riva Krymalowski)--are taken to live in London by their mother to live with her new partner and his two teenage children: Grayson (Théo Augier Bonaventure), and his rude sister, Florence (Gwenaelle Gillet). But don't get too fixated on the fractured family backdrop being relevant, because we hardly even see these parents again until much later. After all, this is a movie for teens, albeit teens who seem to enjoy a fairly posh lifestyle. On Liv's first night at her new home, she borrows Grayson's sweater and dreams that she is in a long alleyway with various doors. She goes into one and finds Grayson and a few of his friends--Henry (Rhys Mannion), Arthur (Chaneil Kular), and Jasper (Efeosa Afolabi)--conspiring in a graveyard. When she wakes up and goes to her new school, she finds that all of them appear to have shared the same lucid dream. In time, Liv discovers that this quartet of diverse fellas are a part of a dream clique, if you will, and through the means of a magic book and an "anchor" to another's dreams, they can navigate this soporific space. Liv is recruited to fill the void of their erstwhile "maiden", Anabel (Josephine Blazier), who has "gone missing". One Halloween night, they perform a ritual designed to grant their deepest wishes, but somehow these wishes begin turning into nightmares...even nightmares that can kill! Liv finds herself at the center of a mystery, where her reoccurring dream of drowning in an icy lake--owing to her survivor's guilt at watching her father drown after he saved her from a similar fate--becomes a Sword of Damocles dangling over her sleepy head.
If I've made Silver and the Book of Dreams sound more exciting than it truly is, chalk it up to an entertaining enough plot, regrettably given the "Netflix" treatment. (Even though I watched this on Amazon Prime, the same idea applies.) What I mean by the Netflix treatment is that to satisfy the gluttonous appetites of streaming apps desperate to fill their libraries with ever new content, virtually anything gets greenlit that they can get their hands on. Then, the movie or TV show gets made using sophisticated camera equipment and with plenty of flashy CGI, leaving the quality of the story, dialogue, and acting dead last on their list of priorities. This is the new "made for TV movie" kind of flick, churned out en masse, more interested in playing it safe than offering up anything unique. It strikes that predictable perfect pitch of quippy and unchallenging comedy and melodrama, but feels like--perhaps as many teenagers are prone to doing--that it is "trying too hard"; in this case, to be something resembling a mashup of Harry Potter and A Nightmare on Elm Street. There's an overarching level of superficiality to the entire movie, which is a pity because it undermines some finer details of the plot that would otherwise benefit from being more deeply explored. For example, Liv and Mia speak German as their native tongue, but this ends up feeling more like an affectation since it has no true bearing on the story at all. The same is true for Grayson and Florence, since their mother (whoever that is) was evidently French, so they have French accents. And it should come as no surprise that London is a global hub for multiculturalism, yes, but all of the diverse backgrounds and ethnicities of the characters in Silver and the Book of Dreams are solely external. Each character exists just to occupy some other kind of social stereotype, regardless of what they look like or their heritage. Arthur becomes just the "secretive rich kid", Grayson the nervous and ambitious underdog competing to win the school election for class president, Jasper is the jock, and Henry the romantic, and so on. Suddenly, the appearance of representation becomes just that--for show. It means nothing more than what is on the surface, and what results is a story where the characters truly don't matter, making it impossible to become invested in their crisis. Even worse, the realm of dreams where Liv and company explore is remarkably shallow. I suppose you could attribute this to these teens having altogether shallow dreams, but this is a cop out. If anyone should have vivid and exciting dreams, I'd think young adults at this formative stage would...but maybe it's because their lifestyles are, sadly, pretty vapid, which makes Silver and the Book of Dreams something of a tragedy in that way. The aspirations that most of these teens have are "getting elected school president" or "becoming a pro basketball player". Sure, I suppose many teens dream about these things, but it's just not very interesting. And while this movie does have a couple of feints and twists, there isn't enough justification for them other than "just because". Furthermore, the "happily ever after" ending and the way by which Silver and the Book of Dreams reaches this point feels too convenient to be meaningful. If this movie was a teenager, it would probably be someone shallow and superficial who could probably find an audience of like-minded individuals; but they wouldn't find a seat next to me at the lunch table, if you know what I mean.
Recommended for: Fans of a tepid and uninspired, made-for-streaming time killer with all of the tired earmarks you can muster from young adult fantasy. Despite often being a pretty movie, Silver and the Book of Dreams squanders all of its good faith that it could be an imaginative and creative one by becoming a rote exercise in making trivial adaptations of kids books, on the off chance that it might just be the next Harry Potter.
If I've made Silver and the Book of Dreams sound more exciting than it truly is, chalk it up to an entertaining enough plot, regrettably given the "Netflix" treatment. (Even though I watched this on Amazon Prime, the same idea applies.) What I mean by the Netflix treatment is that to satisfy the gluttonous appetites of streaming apps desperate to fill their libraries with ever new content, virtually anything gets greenlit that they can get their hands on. Then, the movie or TV show gets made using sophisticated camera equipment and with plenty of flashy CGI, leaving the quality of the story, dialogue, and acting dead last on their list of priorities. This is the new "made for TV movie" kind of flick, churned out en masse, more interested in playing it safe than offering up anything unique. It strikes that predictable perfect pitch of quippy and unchallenging comedy and melodrama, but feels like--perhaps as many teenagers are prone to doing--that it is "trying too hard"; in this case, to be something resembling a mashup of Harry Potter and A Nightmare on Elm Street. There's an overarching level of superficiality to the entire movie, which is a pity because it undermines some finer details of the plot that would otherwise benefit from being more deeply explored. For example, Liv and Mia speak German as their native tongue, but this ends up feeling more like an affectation since it has no true bearing on the story at all. The same is true for Grayson and Florence, since their mother (whoever that is) was evidently French, so they have French accents. And it should come as no surprise that London is a global hub for multiculturalism, yes, but all of the diverse backgrounds and ethnicities of the characters in Silver and the Book of Dreams are solely external. Each character exists just to occupy some other kind of social stereotype, regardless of what they look like or their heritage. Arthur becomes just the "secretive rich kid", Grayson the nervous and ambitious underdog competing to win the school election for class president, Jasper is the jock, and Henry the romantic, and so on. Suddenly, the appearance of representation becomes just that--for show. It means nothing more than what is on the surface, and what results is a story where the characters truly don't matter, making it impossible to become invested in their crisis. Even worse, the realm of dreams where Liv and company explore is remarkably shallow. I suppose you could attribute this to these teens having altogether shallow dreams, but this is a cop out. If anyone should have vivid and exciting dreams, I'd think young adults at this formative stage would...but maybe it's because their lifestyles are, sadly, pretty vapid, which makes Silver and the Book of Dreams something of a tragedy in that way. The aspirations that most of these teens have are "getting elected school president" or "becoming a pro basketball player". Sure, I suppose many teens dream about these things, but it's just not very interesting. And while this movie does have a couple of feints and twists, there isn't enough justification for them other than "just because". Furthermore, the "happily ever after" ending and the way by which Silver and the Book of Dreams reaches this point feels too convenient to be meaningful. If this movie was a teenager, it would probably be someone shallow and superficial who could probably find an audience of like-minded individuals; but they wouldn't find a seat next to me at the lunch table, if you know what I mean.
Recommended for: Fans of a tepid and uninspired, made-for-streaming time killer with all of the tired earmarks you can muster from young adult fantasy. Despite often being a pretty movie, Silver and the Book of Dreams squanders all of its good faith that it could be an imaginative and creative one by becoming a rote exercise in making trivial adaptations of kids books, on the off chance that it might just be the next Harry Potter.