Somnium Movie Review: Dream-State Indie Noir

If Black Mirror and Mulholland Drive had a fiercely independent baby, it might look something like Somnium. Writer-director Racheal Cain spent thirteen years bringing Somnium to fruition—a journey that mirrors her protagonist’s struggle to transform aspirations into reality. Financed through Instagram connections and Kickstarter campaigns, the film’s scrappy production story embodies the same DIY spirit that drives its narrative. What emerges is an ambitious debut that reaches for profound themes about artificial memory and authentic ambition, though its grasp occasionally exceeds its technical capabilities.

Small-town transplant Gemma (Chloë Levine, The Sacrifice Game) arrives in Los Angeles with dreams larger than her preparation. Despite harboring movie star aspirations for years, she seems startlingly unprepared for the city’s brutal realities—a disconnect that occasionally feels like script convenience rather than character truth. Needing income for rent and auditions, she takes overnight shifts at Somnium, an experimental sleep clinic where clients’ dreams are surgically altered to implant confidence-building memories.

The concept feels plausibly near-future, tapping into contemporary anxieties about identity manipulation and manufactured success. As Gemma chases auditions by day and guards the unconscious by night, cracks form in both the clinic’s operation and her psyche. Are the eerie sounds and shadowy figures signs of something sinister, or just byproducts of sleep deprivation and heartbreak? The script withholds information strategically, though not always satisfyingly.

Levine delivers a magnetic central performance that anchors the film’s more unstable elements. Gemma radiates small-town earnestness colliding with big-city indifference. She embodies an element of tragedy in her unpreparedness, yet remains relentlessly determined. Levine navigates flashback sequences with natural chemistry alongside Peter Vack (Brittany Runs a Marathon) as Hunter. These scenes, shot four years earlier in Georgia, feature her ex-boyfriend, whose memory haunts her fresh start. These temporal layers add authentic aging to character relationships while highlighting the production’s extended timeline.

The supporting cast struggles with underwritten roles. Will Peltz (Men, Women, & Children) as Noah, the clinic’s dream designer, promises fascinating insights but remains frustratingly underdeveloped. Johnathon Schaech (The Night Clerk) brings silver-haired charisma to Brooks, a potential mentor with deliberately ambiguous intentions. Schaech knows how to ride the fence on creepy menace but his scattered scenes feel disconnected from the central narrative.

Cain demonstrates visual confidence that exceeds her script’s coherence, creating an atmosphere of creeping unease through cinematographer Lance Kuhns’ strategic use of negative space and shadow. The clinic scenes are bathed in moody blues and purples that suggest both technological advancement and otherworldly harm. Even Gemma’s apartment building feels appropriately haunted by the constant presence of darkness—corners where danger might lurk, patches of blackness that build suspense effectively, though the technique becomes repetitive.

The film’s most intriguing element—the dream therapy itself—remains frustratingly opaque. We understand the basic concept, but crucial questions go unanswered: What constitutes success versus failure? Why do some patients require the irreversible Cloud 9 protocol? This vagueness might work for atmospheric horror, but Somnium positions itself as thoughtful science fiction. The genre demands clearer world-building to support its ambitious themes.

Where Somnium succeeds is in exploring Hollywood’s emotional toll on dreamers, capturing the grinding repetition of rejection through Gemma’s audition montages while her financial desperation feels authentically crushing. The film understands how isolation breeds desperation and how desperate people make dangerous choices. Cain’s own journey from unknown filmmaker to feature director can even be looked at at informing these scenes with hard-won authenticity.

The production’s DIY origins show in both positive and negative ways. There’s genuine charm in the film’s scrappy determination, and the limited visual effects work creates effective moments of surreal beauty. Mike Forst and Peter Ricq’s omnipresent score creates an unsettling sonic landscape that contributes to the film’s dreamlike atmosphere even when the visuals falter.

The film’s final act embraces abstract imagery over concrete resolution, which will likely divide audiences. Those seeking clear answers about Somnium’s true purpose or Gemma’s fate may leave frustrated. However, viewers willing to engage with the film’s metaphorical elements might find deeper meaning in its exploration of authentic versus manufactured confidence.

As debut features go, Somnium reveals a filmmaker with genuine vision struggling against resource limitations. The emotional center holds even when the mystery wavers. Watching Gemma battle sleep, doubt, and a system that consumes ambition feels both unsettling and familiar. In the film’s most chilling moment, she asks, “Is this changing my reality, or just how I perceive it?” That question lingers for anyone chasing a dream—or trying to wake from one.

Somnium isn’t flawless, but it leaves a mark. It hums with the energy of a filmmaker with something to say and just enough resources to say it her way. While this particular dream may not fully materialize, it suggests that Cain’s next project might achieve the clarity and impact this one reaches for.