With its blend of dystopian science fiction enveloped in a 1950’s aesthetic, DreamQuil merges elements of feminist tropes, technological anxiety and the overabundance of wellness schemes into a cautionary tale. Written during the pandemic, director Alex Prager and her sister Vanessa Prager’s script is largely set indoors with social activities taking place primarily in the virtual world. Carol (played by Elizabeth Banks) and her husband Gary (John C. Reilly) are on the brink of a divorce. Complaints of his wife living under the same roof yet never quite being present in the family, and even their son Quentin (Toby Larsen) not wanting to be in her general vicinity, leads Carol to enroll in DreamQuil, a wellness retreat that promises a fresh restart and perspective. Upon returning home, she finds a second Carol clone (Anna Marie Dobbins) who’s been helping around the house in her absence, albeit a walking and talking AI version. While the film doesn’t venture into unchartered or compelling territory, DreamQuil is still a fun darkly comedic and engaging ride.
A debut from Alex Prager, whose previous projects primarily lie in the short film format as well as photography, the director’s work undoubtedly has a keen eye for style and design. Drenching greens permeate throughout the house with a foggy haze shown in outdoor scenes. Depicting the original Carol from Carol Two by bright red and sky blue outfits demarcates the two dopplegangers, as jealousy, rage and competitiveness brews inside the mother and wife. Despite wishing for her son and husband to refer to her by her birth name, it’s difficult for her to resist the palpable resentment she feels once hearing her son call her robot version by ‘Mom’. DreamQuil does swiftly glide through much of the building blocks of its characters; one moment the two Carols are sharing a chummy moment after celebrating the success of Carol’s promotion, the next with Carol staring down her twin in a fit of fury. While it makes for several moments of comedic tension release, it also tends to dim down its protagonists to simplified categories to easily fit them in.
In DreamQuil’s stronger moments, the film tackles questions of societal roles; with responsibilities not only as a mother and a wife, but also in one’s career and personal time, it becomes near impossible to manage it all day to day. The presence of an AI clone to help manage the “boring” aspects of daily activity should bring about more happiness, or so contends Gary’s character, though perhaps there is still some inherent value found in all the myriad roles that women assert themselves in. While Prager’s film attempts to question a wide existential scope of societal expectations for women, it narrowly misses the mark by relying heavily on more visual and darkly comedic aspects of its film instead.
