Product Description

18 year old Audrey (Agnes Bruckner) lives with her father (John Corbett) in a remote community in the breathtakingly beautiful New Mexico desert. Though Audrey longs to go to college, she spends her days taking care of her father, who hasn't left home since Audrey's mother died, and her best friend Calista (Kelli Garner), who dreams of becoming Miss America but is struggling with a life-challenging illness.

The summer after Audrey graduates from high school, her world is changed forever when an attractive young man named Mookie (Justin Long) moves in next door with his mother Mary (Gina Gershon) and her fiancée, Herb (Chris Mulkey). Knowing how much Calista longs for romance, Audrey encourages Mookie to ask Calista on a date. He obliges, and he and Calista soon become a couple. Audrey, however, finds herself developing feelings for Mookie, and as these feelings grow it becomes harder and harder to remain the dependable, selfless person that her father and best friend have always counted on her to be.

Dreamland is the story of a young woman who has taken care of everyone around her but ultimately learns to take care of herself. It is also the story of how those whose lives she touched must find the strength to let her go.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #46286 in DVD
• Brand: Sony
• Released on: 2006-12-19
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 88 minutes

Customer Reviews

Caring for Others, Taking Care of the Self
DREAMLAND is one of those little Indie films that sneaks up on you, draws you in and leaves you feeling fulfilled. Written by Tom Willett and directed with great sensitivity to both style and message by Jason Matzner, the film boasts a truly remarkable cast in every role and the ensemble acting is some of the finest in this year's lineup.

"Dreamland" is the name of a very small trailer park in New Mexico, out in the sticks, yes, but surrounded by the magnificence of majestic clouds in crystalline blue skies and a land free of industrial detritus - except for the powerlines that play such an important role in the story. In a sad trailer house live Audrey (Agnes Bruckner), a poet who has given up chances for college to remain with her father Henry (John Corbett), a man decimated by the death of his wife to the point that he is unable to leave the trailer even to buy the beer and cigarettes that sustain his life. Audrey also is caring for her closest friend Calista (Kelli Garner), a beautiful girl who dreams of becoming Miss America but knows her life is to be shortened by the fact that she suffers from Multiple Sclerosis. Audrey writes her poetry but her life is consumed by being the caretaker for Henry and Calista.

Into the trailer park moves a new 'family' - hunky young Mookie (Justin Long) and his mother ex-singer/performer Mary (Gina Gershon) and her live-in boyfriend Herb (Chris Mulkey). Audrey and Calista watch them unpack and while both girls find Mookie attractive, Audrey talks Calista into dating him. Audrey's only male contact is her 'sex-buddy', tacky and gawky Abraham (Brian Klugman) who works at the local convenience store with Audrey. Mookie and Calista begin an affair while Audrey looks on longingly, and when Calista lets Mookie know she has MS the relationship is strained: Mookie also is leaving for the university soon.

Audrey confesses her feelings for Mookie and Calista flees on a motorcycle to chase the now departed Mookie. She is in an accident and is hospitalized and since she has broken her relationship with her caretaker Audrey, Henry manages to draw enough courage to leave his trailer to sit at Calista's hospital bedside - along with visits from Mookie. Calista's accident makes her even more aware of her fractured future and she releases her feelings for Mookie, reconnects with Audrey, and Audrey's father discovers her many letters of acceptance to college she has hidden to prevent abandoning her role as caretaker and convinces Audrey to flow with her dreams instead of being imprisoned in Dreamland. And the manner in which each of the characters in the film resolves the changes now facing them is the tender ending of the story.

DREAMLAND is created by a very strong cast of fine actors who dwell solidly within their characters' psyches, making this somewhat surreal story very real indeed. The setting is extraordinary in its ordinariness and the camerawork by Jonathan Sela is impeccable. This is a strong story about coming of age, about quality of love, and about being human. It is a treasure. Grady Harp, December 06

Dreams in the Desert...and a Lot of Co-Dependency
There are two things that work well in first-time director Jason Matzner's leisurely paced 2006 indie drama. The first are the arresting visuals of the sun-parched New Mexico desert landscape courtesy of the rich, mirage-like cinematography of Jonathan Sela. The second is the touching performance of Agnes Bruckner as eighteen-year old Audrey, the emotional focus of this rather idiosyncratic coming-of-age story. Looking and acting a bit like Toni Collette's prettier baby sister, Bruckner lends refreshing resonance to a role that could have been left as another put-upon teen coming to terms with her life. Written by Tom Willett, the story takes place in the aptly named Dreamland, an isolated trailer park where a group of people are living just outside of the mainstream.

What we discover in Dreamland is a community of needy misfits with Audrey the common thread who nobly helps them carry on with their lives. She lives with her beer-swilling, agoraphobic father, who stays in the trailer park like a recluse unable to get past his wife's death two years prior. She also takes care of her best friend, the self-dubbed Calista, a beauty queen wannabe gradually deteriorating from multiple sclerosis. All the while, Audrey works at the local mini-mart with her beatnik co-worker Abraham with whom she experiments carnally on occasion. When a new family moves into the park, Audrey and Calista are both attracted to Mookie, the basketball-obsessed son of a minor-league rock singer just about to marry her pedal steel guitar-playing boyfriend. The inevitable complications occur and lead to a tragic event that forces all the co-dependency issues to come to the surface.

The movie has a loping though occasionally inviting tone until the contrived accident at which point Willett seems to shift gears into standard melodrama as if there is a loss of faith in the story. Character transformations occur more as plot conveniences leaving the resolution feeling rather hollow. Beyond Bruckner, the cast is solid even though the characters seem only half-baked. Using his innate likeability from playing decent guys on "Northern Exposure" and "Sex in the City", John Corbett does what he can with the impossible role of the father. Kelli Garner effectively manages to combine effervescence and fragility as Calista. Even though he looks too short to be convincing as a basketball scholarship candidate, Justin Long provides affecting moments as Mookie when he is not contriving basketball analogies to explain his feelings. The usually more intriguing Gina Gershon is barely onscreen as his mother. Other than previews of current theatrical releases and new DVDs, there are no extras to be found on the 2006 DVD.

"People Come Out Here To Be Healed" ~ Refined, Or Defined By The Desert Experience
Life has potential and hope springs eternal even out in the middle of nowhere (New Mexico to be precise) at a rundown trailer park appropriately named "Dreamland."

We've all driven by such rundown, out of the way places and wondered what would possess a person to settle down in such a location. Are they people with hopes, ambitions and talents? Are they people like you and me? Maybe yes, maybe no. 'Dreamland' released in '05 deals with just such a quaint, out-of-the-way spot where a small group of individuals dwell away from the maddening crowd in an attempt to sort out the mysteries of life and the possible opportunities that await outside their cloistered community.

I enjoyed this movie. `Dreamland' contains an attractive cast of characters, a strong storyline with some quirky situations, beautiful desert scenery and an enjoyable Indie soundtrack. This is a film that will stand up well to repeat viewings, which is the bottom line for any good movie.

P.S.: If you know of any trailer parks that have female residents as good-looking as the one's in this film please give me a call.