A visual masterpiece that bombed at the box office, What Dreams May Come remains divisive.
In short: Released in 1998, this fantasy drama won an Academy Award for its stunning visual effects but struggled with critics who found its plot lacking. Despite a budget of up to $90 million, it became a box-office bomb, yet it remains a singular, ambitious attempt to visualize the afterlife on screen.
Directed by Vincent Ward and starring Robin Williams, the film follows a man who navigates a painterly Heaven and a nightmarish Hell to rescue his wife after she dies by suicide. The production was a technical marvel, utilizing visual effects from Mass.lllusions—the same group behind the bullet time sequences in The Matrix. Filming took place in diverse locations, including Glacier National Park and the decommissioned USS Oriskany, which served as a set for the film's depiction of Hell.
The film is an adaptation of Richard Matheson’s 1978 novel, though it deviates significantly from the source material. While the film focuses on a romantic, painterly afterlife, the novel incorporates Theosophical concepts like astral projection and telepathy, and portrays a much more violent, physically torturous version of Hell. Matheson himself remained notably distant from the adaptation, echoing a sentiment that the original book should have been filmed more faithfully.
Critical reception was polarized upon release. While some reviewers like Roger Ebert praised its imaginative power and emotional core, others dismissed it as 'gobbledygook' or criticized its literal-minded visual approach. The film's legacy is further complicated by the loss of its original prints in a 2008 Universal Studios fire, necessitating a worldwide search to recover a copy. Today, it stands as a polarizing artifact of late-90s cinema, remembered as much for its technical ambition as for its narrative shortcomings.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: What Dreams May Come (film)
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