Luke McWilliams gives his review of the 2019 thriller, Dreamland, starring Margot Robbie and Finn Cole.
Via narration, we flashback to the Great Depression in a small Texas town, where Phoebe Evans (voiced by Lola Kirke) recounts the story of her family and the desperate town they live in; a barren land vulnerable to dust storms with banks chasing the local farmers. Phoebe recalls her naïve, daydreaming brother Eugene (Finn Cole), who loves reading detective comics. One day, Eugene goes to the family’s disused tractor barn to find a gorgeous, but wounded criminal on the run, Allison Wells (Margot Robbie).
The movie employs a gritty, retrospective photographic quality to evoke Eugene’s impression of Mexico, a place his father has escaped to years before. It is this ‘dreamland’ that Eugene escapes to away from this unforgiving land in a town with no future. The seductress Allison is straight out of one of Eugene’s comic books; a wounded and vulnerable femme fatale who needs Eugene’s help to survive and who also serves as his impetus to finally make the trek to Mexico.
The cinematography is fantastic, capturing apocalyptic visions of sandstorms enveloping a town on its last legs. Australian Travis Fimmel plays a tough cop, but extremely sympathetic stepfather who must raise the rebellious Eugene while also hunting-down the dangerous criminal hiding out in his town.
Verdict: A great performance from Robbie using her Harley Quinn ‘dame’ accent, the movie is little more than a coming-of-age retread of the Bonnie and Clyde story. 3 stars.
Dreamland is now showing at Dendy cinemas.
- Luke McWilliams | themovieclub.net
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