DREAM WITH THE FISHES (Sony Classics) Starring: David Arquette, Brad Hunt, Kathryn Erbe, Cathy Moriarty. Screenplay: Finn Taylor. Producers: Johnny Wow and Mitchell Stein. Director: Finn Taylor. MPAA Rating: R (profanity, nudity, drug use, adult themes, sexual situations). Running Time: 93 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
Even by the standards of independent cinema, DREAM WITH THE FISHES is a tough film to categorize. At times, writer/director Finn Taylor's debut feature is edgy and tough-talking; at other times, it's a surreal odyssey; at still other times, it's a sensitive drama of male bonding. It's a genuinely bizarre experience, something akin to watching BRIAN'S SONG as it might be re-made by Abel Ferrara and Gus Van Sant.
Genuinely bizarre film experiences are rare enough that DREAM WITH THE FISHES should have been commendable on that count alone. For the first half hour or so, it is actually quite compelling, telling the story of a depressive San Francisco executive named Terry (David Arquette) who spends his evenings spying on the building across the street through his rear window. One night Terry prepares to end his life by jumping off the Bay Bridge, but he is interrupted by Nick Ambrusio (Brad Hunt), a small-time crook and scam artist. When Terry's resolve to finishi himself off falters, Nick offers him a strange bargain. Nick, it turns out, has only a few weeks to live, and wants to live out some of his life-long fantasies. If Terry will bankroll those fantasies, Nick will provide a service: he'll kill Terry himself at a time of Terry's choosing.
Those introductory scenes between Nick and Terry are the best DREAM WITH THE FISHES has to offer, maintaining a sense of mystery and a dangerous tension between the characters. Nick, the hustler (a sharp, eye-catching performance by Hunt), seems to be working some kind of long con; Terry, the miserable voyeur, could be unstable enough to be far more trouble than Nick expects from a guy in a tie. Along with Nick's girlfriend Liz (Kathryn Erbe), they form a unsteady triangle which keeps you watching and guessing.
Then, of all the posible things he could do with the characters next, Taylor does perhaps the least interesting: he turns them into mis-matched buddies. Over their shared misery they begin a series of adventures which, in no necessary order, include an acid trip at Fisherman's Wharf, a round of naked bowling, a difficult reunion between Nick and his father (J. E. Freeman), Terry winning the California lottery, and a naked bank heist. Nick the Hustler turns into Nick the Misunderstood Sensitive Guy Who Had a Bad Childhood, while Terry the Miserable Voyeur turns into just another Vaguely Unhappy Guy Who Needs Only to Loosen Up under the tutelage of a Doomed Free Spirit. All sense of invention, the life-blood of independent film-making, dissolves into inevitable pathos.
Taylor could have taken the characters in DREAM WITH THE FISHES and sent them off on a hyper-violent crime spree, or had them sit around for ninety minutes comparing notes on generational angst. It's a pleasant surprise that he does neither, but his resolution to this story is neither particularly pleasant nor particularly surprising. If there's one way I never expected DREAM WITH THE FISHES to end, it was with a life-affirming scattering of ashes. It's the ending to a made-for-Lifetime movie with a testosterone twist.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 fish out of water: 5.
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