Come True (2021)
Directed by Anthony Scott Burns; screenplay by Anthony Scott Burns; starring Julia Sarah Stone, Landon Liboiron and Chantal Perron.
3/5
What is it we’re dreaming of when we fall asleep? Are scattered fragments of memories simply flitting in and out of focus? Are neurons just firing randomly and producing quick-to-fade images in our mind’s eye? Or is it something else – something a little more nefarious? Come True, a low-budget, sci-fi horror coming out of Canada, attempts to tackle these questions (not always successfully) with an inventive narrative that combines a little of the retro, sleepover-core stylings of It Follows, and that threat of incursion from the dream-world we all dreaded from A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Sarah (Julia Sarah Stone) lives on the streets, only really venturing inside to go to school, to nab some items from under her estranged mother’s nose, and at the behest of a close friend’s parents for an extended sleepover. Most nights, she sleeps rough in a park and virtually sleepwalks through each day, so when the chance comes to participate in a sleep study where she gets paid to sleep in an actual bed she positively jumps on it.
It’s a study steeped in mystery, however – run by some friendly faces and some whose motives appear a little more questionable – and whenever Sarah attempts to enquire about any of them she’s hit with the same response: “I can’t answer that.”
Eventually, it becomes clear what’s going on. Those gliding tours through we’ve been taking through some foreboding Shadow (big S for reasons that’ll become clear) world what Sarah’s been dreaming each night, and the docs seeks to understand what’s going on in her head – to visualise in the real world what goes on in the land of the dream.
What they’ll soon discover, though, is that there is something lurking in everyone’s minds – a ubiquitous nightmare, some collective fear – that would be best to prevent from “coming true” at all costs.
Most immediately appealing about Come True is its visual style. Since much of the film takes place at night, with very little natural light available to film with, a creative solution was reached that allows the film to cloak itself in a plausible and eye-catching neon shroud.
It’s virtually dripping in that foreboding atmosphere I mentioned; most scenes are sopping with purples and blues reminiscent of the currently-thriving cyberpunk genre and a helping dose of the dark, monochromatic dream world really helps balance things out, preventing it from falling into that migraine-inducing artificiality that lots of similarly hyper-stylised films – such as the trippy Mandy – tend to do.
In a similar vein, the soundtrack, co-produced by Canadian synth pop duo Electric Youth (you’ll likely remember “Real Hero,” their contribution to Drive) and Pilotpriest, is a treat in and of itself and well worth a listen apart from the film if you have a moment. Thrumming, retro-synth chords underpin a fair amount of the runtime here but, unlike recent blockbusters – such as Chris Nolan’s Tenet – you never really get sick of them and in fact the textures evoked really help lend Come True a lot of its dreamy quality.
It sounds like a perfect combination really. Compelling visuals, a killer soundtrack, an inventive central conceit, so what’s the catch?
The catch is that Come True really seems to have spread itself a bit thin. The film really doesn’t ever appear greater than the sum of its low-budget parts, and that’s a little disappointing to admit. I like this film – but I don’t love it.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say the narrative and thematic framework of the film exist to justify the visual experimentation here, but there’s some lingering anxiety that that’s the case. It’s a worry that’s ever present when watching low-budget sci-fi like this and the film never makes the effort to dispel it.
As by now you may have realised, Come True dabbles in no small part in a kind of Jungian psychoanalysis, concerned with ideas such as that of the Jung’s Shadow (labelling one of its acts such – it does the same with the Id, Animus and Anima, Ego, etc) and the collective unconscious. It’s a fact the film wears on its sleeve and weaves into its narrative, its conflicts, but never really does much with – it comes across as more a flavouring than a substantive meal you can get anything out of.
At the end of each of the nightly ghost-train rides through the dark, computer-generated imagery of Sarah’s dreams, a shadowy man with white, unnatural eyes invariably appears, at first as a figure of mystery, then an outright threat.
It’s a play on the threatening shadow-figures reported by those unfortunate enough to suffer with sleep paralysis – a fact that is nodded to at several points during the film – but it’s also a representation of the violent, unconscious urges of every human. Disappointingly, the point of this figure’s appearance is made obvious rather early on and nothing is really ever done to give the subject a fresh perspective. It’s just comes off as interesting flavouring.
And that’s what a lot of the underlying threads that don’t really end up being resolved feel like: wasted opportunities.
Riff (Landon Liboiron), the doctor who originally came up with the tech involved in the study and who is the study’s de facto leader during the long nights of observation that unfold, at one point takes to stalking Sarah about town, hoping to get nearer to her but afraid to make a move. Right there is so that could be explored: Riff’s unconscious toxic attitudes to romance, his feelings for Sarah – but again, nothing really comes of it.
It’s the same with all that set up for Sarah. Her troubles at home, her one close friend, difficulties at school. They all just appear to be a reason to get her into the study and stay there and nothing more.
Part of me thinks this is really just a difficulty with the film’s obsession with the collective unconscious, because it really treats that collective aspect literally.
Come True ultimately renders everyone’s fears identical to one another – manifested as this shadow man – when the specifics would be so much more interesting to get into. Alas, there’s really no individual manifestation of that negative side of the personality that comes out and it all ends up as this generic statement of ‘we’ve all got something bad inside that is probably best we don’t let out.’
Watched on 23rd May 2021