DREAMERS

Produced by Artie Glackin
Written and Directed by Ann Lu
Edited by Andrea Zondler
Director of Photography - Neal L. Fredericks

Ethan - Mark Ballou
Dave - Jeremy Jordan
Pete - Brain Krause
Mike - Courtney Gains

Have you ever wondered why you are friends with the people that you are? I find myself doing so all the time, especially with the ones I've known since childhood. Recently, I spent the weekend at the home of a friend I've known for almost 20 years. As is often the case, a few years back we drifted apart after he met a girl and decided she was the one. In 4 years I've seen him 3 times. As I tried to sleep in the guest bed the couple's new home, I kept asking myself "who was that guy across from me at dinner." He didn't talk the same, act the same, or look the same as the person I remembered. I'm not sure whose house I stayed at that weekend, but it surely didn't belong to my best friend since childhood. I wonder what happened to that guy, or to me, in the last 4 years. We've spoken on the phone since that weekend, but it's not the same. I wonder if it's worth the effort to try and hold on.

Ann Lu's DREAMERS is about a similar sort of relationship. Ethan and Dave are childhood friends who have spent the better part of the last decade trying to maintain their friendship through long distance correspondence. With a troubled childhood and a teenlife sculpted by Los Angeles cynicism, Ethan has grown into a jaded nihilist willing to take advantage of his corn-country born and breed pal Dave in order to bring about a life-long dream they've both shared, making a movie.

Dave merely wants to escape his mid-western confines and rekindle his friendship with Ethan, who has lived the life Dave always dreamed about. Raised by "traditional" mid-western values in a good family, Dave isn't so much a rube as he is a naive victim of his family's love. As with 99% of "Welcome to L.A." movies, Dave's eyes are opened to the realities of the outside world.

L.A. has become it's own stereotype. The city is usually depicted as a world of gang violence or one of superficiality due to it's entertainment connections, which is the case with DREAMERS. Those not in "the industry" are the butts of city mouse/country mouse jokes, as is the case of Dave. Perhaps the only honest depiction of L.A.'s blue collar scene is Doug Liman's SWINGERS, where a group of twenty-something eccentrics fester in their own boredom between jobs.

Like SWINGERS, DREAMERS doesn't force quirkiness on the majority of it's supporting characters. Those more colorful seem out of place, as is the case with a gay actor whom the virginal Dave is forced to stay with, an issue that sets the tone of Dave and Ethan's relationship for the entire film. Perhaps if the actor had toned down his flamboyance, gay portrayal might not have stuck out so much. It certainly would have played the ambiguous nature of Dave's sexuality. P> Chances are even if Ethan never left the mid-west of L.A., he and Dave wouldn't have remained friends for that many more years. They would have drifted apart like so many other friendships. In their reunion after so many years apart, each sees the world in which they wish they had lived, and the sad truth being that neither would have been any better off. The events of DREAMERS allows them the chance to experience in a few weeks what would have taken social evolution years of adolescence. It was just a matter of time before they realized life them with too little to bind them together.

Jeremy Jordan plays against his singer persona as the nerdish Dave, and his performance is both nuanced and restrained. Until I looked him up on the internet, I had no idea this was the same Jordan whose pictures adorned my nieces' walls. Mark Ballou is an actor I have seen on screen in over 10 years. Some might remember him as one of the would-be rappers in PUMP UP THE VOLUME or the short-lived musical tv series, Hull High. In both he played variations of a similar character erupting with adolescent vigor. His Ethan is that character after reality sets in.

DREAMERS is a cold movie with few deeply sympathetic characters. The result is distancing, but effective due to the complex nature of the relationships. I'm hard-pressed to say whether I liked it or not, perhaps because it hits too close to home. It's worth seeing, more so than most talking-head indies, especially to those reevaluating their own friendships.

The Pathfinder Entertainment DVD contains a nice selection of extras including a stills gallery, bios, outtakes, a making-of featurette, and a commentary with Lu, her DP Neal Fredericks, and Robert Napton, a man not involved in the movie's production, but rather an enthusiastic fan who is screening the movie for the eleventh time, captivated by the film's honesty.

Dreamers
Dark Lantern Pictures
Pathfinder Home Entertainment

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