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FEMME FATALE by Tom McCurrie
Dream sequences can be really cool. Not only can they give your script a surreal visual boost, but they can also help the writer get inside a character's mind in a way that wouldn't be possible in a more naturalistic scene. But as FEMME FATALE shows, too much of anything -- even dream sequences -- can be bad for a screenplay's health.
(Warning: Spoilers Ahead!)
Written (and directed) by Brian De Palma, FEMME FATALE treads familiar noir territory. A scorchingly beautiful jewel thief (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) double-crosses her partners and absconds with a fistful of diamonds. She heads to Paris, changes her name and marries the American Ambassador. But when a nosy paparazzo (Antonio Banderas) discovers her true identity, the deadly twists and turns really begin.
I have to admit, I love these neo-noir flicks, especially when they're given the sleazy De Palma treatment. I mean, there's an opening lesbian lip-lock between Romijn-Stamos and Danish superbabe Rie Rasmussen that was so hot I nearly passed out (which is very hard to do sitting down). Add some nasty villains, some gloriously bloody killings and some wonderfully gratuitous nudity and you have a real B-movie treat.
But the high point is the nihilistic climax. Romijn-Stamos' attempt to dupe Banderas into a phony kidnapping plot ends with the Ambassador shot and killed, Banderas shot and dying, and Miss Femme Fatale beaten senseless and tossed into the River Seine to drown. Not exactly a happy ending, but in the noir world, an extremely cool one.
Unfortunately, in a movie filled with some pretty good twists, De Palma adds a truly lame one. That is, the whole story turns out to be a dream! Not the initial heist, of course, but everything afterwards: Romijn-Stamos changing her name and marrying the Ambassador, meeting Banderas and duping him into the kidnapping, and finally doing a header into the Seine. All dreamed up when this Baddest of Bad Girls nods off in the tub.
Though the dream explains away some of the script's more dubious contrivances, especially Banderas tailing Romijn-Stamos so ineptly she'd have to be legally blind not to see him, the fact that ninety percent of the movie is hooey is incredibly annoying.
Why? For one thing, using an extended dream sequence is a total cheat. It's the lazy screenwriter's way of getting the protagonist out of a jam (like being dunked to death). The same gambit was used in that Emilio Estevez howler WISDOM. In fact, Emilio dreamed the whole plot in the tub, too. Maybe porcelain cures insomnia or something.
But the real problem is one of emotional investment. Whenever we enter the fictional world of a movie, we form an emotional bond with that world. So when we find out that world was just somebody's bad dream, that we've wasted our time -- and feelings -- for nothing...well, that's a pretty frustrating experience. Not one that gets your movie a lot of repeat business, anyway.
Now to give De Palma credit, I do see what he was trying to accomplish here -- he was using the dream to warn the main character (and us) that bad things happen to bad people. Give up your Femme Fatale lifestyle and you won't be fish food. This is a worthy theme, but it's also a cerebral one. And as I've mentioned before, movies are driven by emotion, not intellect. So the resentment we feel over being tricked overwhelms any moral De Palma tries to teach us.
So use those dream sequences sparingly. After all, if you think you can get away with any more, you're dreaming.
Responses, comments and general two-cents worth can be E-mailed to gillis662000@yahoo.com.
A graduate of USC's School of Cinema-Television, Tom McCurrie has worked as a development executive and a story analyst. He is currently a screenwriter living in Los Angeles.
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