The Good Night (2007)

Director:

Jake Paltrow

Writer (WGA):

Jake Paltrow (written by)

Release Date:

15 November 2007 (Israel)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Fantasy | Romance

Tagline:

A comedic fantasy.

Plot:

A former pop star who now writes commercial jingles for a living experiences a mid-life crisis.

Plot Keywords:

Dream | Friend | Lucid Dreaming | Band | Female Nudity

Cast

Keith Allen	...	Norman
Steffan Boje	...	Karlheinz
Penélope Cruz	...	Anna / Melodia
Danny DeVito	...	Mel
Sonia Doubell	...	Shawna
Martin Freeman	...	Gary Shaller
Michael Gambon	...	Alan Weigert
Stephen Graham	...	Victor
Kate Harper	...	Ballet Teacher
Juliana Kiehl	...	Naresta
Bruno Lastra	...	Italian Slickster #2
Martino Lazzeri	...	Italian Slickster #1
Meredith MacNeill	...	Tica
Gwyneth Paltrow	...	Dora Shaller
Simon Pegg	...	Paul

Also Known As:

The good Night - Träum weiter... (Germany) (DVD title)

MPAA:

Rated R for language and some sexual content.

Runtime:

93 min

Country:

USA | UK | Germany

Language:

English | Italian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Portugal:M/12 | USA:R | South Korea:15 | Singapore:NC-16 | Australia:M | New Zealand:R16 | Argentina:13

Filming Locations:

Ealing Studios, Ealing, London, England, UK

Company:

Good Night Productions

Quotes:

Mel: Sometimes I wish that you could just hit the sack and never wake up. If your favorite song never ended, or your best book never closed, if the emotions mustered from these things would just go on and on, who wouldn't want to stay asleep? The guy who discovers that perpetual dream, he's my man.

Movie Connections:

References Gremlins (1984)

Soundtrack:

The Universal

Not bad, but victim to a classic blunder

Making a movie about dreams or dreaming is tough, and it shows in this one. The difficulty with dreams in any bit of fiction is that they can't be held accountable; that is, by definition, there isn't any kind of direct correspondence between dream occurrences and narrative significance. A dream (singular) here and there can enrich a narrative with symbolism, causality, subconscious, but when the dream becomes plural then almost universally a story starts to break down. Having gritted my teeth through movies like Waking Life and The Cell, to name a few, I've come to associate "dream" with "lazy" in cinema.

That being said, I had to see what Simon Pegg and Martin Freeman would do in a movie together. And the bottom line is, due to these two guys, the movie is worth a watch. Don't may more than $4 to see it.

What you get really is a movie without consequences. You have Martin Freeman obsessed with a dream character. OK, kind of interesting, but there's not enough dimension to his girlfriend (Paltrow), who just seems like a nag, or his friend/former bandmate (Pegg), who, granted, is extremely funny but ultimately without Pathos, to really make his dream obsession a truly engrossing psychological/sociological study.

And again, what happens here is that the dream sequences, and even the obsession with them, because of the, by definition, incommensurable quality of dreams, their inability to be authentically expressed through proxy (language, film, journals, etc.), leave us as audience members bereft of any feeling of causality, arc, or direction.

Also, as a sidenote, the pseudo-documentary format that the film opens with and halfheartedly maintains is confusing and ultimately misdirecting. It ends up looking like the mistake of a novice director.

Martin Freeman performs his lines well, Pegg is funny, DeVito is a pleasing eccentric, and Paltrow isn't as annoying as she usually is (however Cruz is somewhat intolerable), so the movie is worth seeing once, if you've got nothing better to do.