Michel Franco’s Dreams is a study in power, appetite and the violence of restraint — a sleek, unnerving erotic drama that feels both of-the-moment and like a daring callback to the sorely missed erotic thrillers of the ’90s.
Jessica Chastain plays Jennifer, a formidable American business executive whose wealthy family pours millions into arts institutions across the globe. She moves through the film in immaculate monochrome, with a tight bun and clacking heels. While perpetually flanked by assistants, she is forever entering and exiting rooms where decisions are made and money changes hands. The message is clear: She is control incarnate — curated, disciplined, untouchable.
But along comes Fernando (Isaac Hernández), a young, undocumented Mexican ballet dancer whom Jennifer first meets via a Mexico City dance company bankrolled by her family. He is her seductive counterpoint: always draped in a thin layer of sweat, thick curls unkempt, shirt untucked. After their first night together, Jennifer leaves him a wad of cash and a key. Like an alley cat that got the good milk, he keeps on crawling back. And that works for Jennifer; she loves having him in her home, funding him, feeding him, fucking him. Quickly, it becomes an intimacy that feels less like partnership than possession. In fact it feels maternal, proprietary even. We eventually discover that Jennifer cannot have children of her own — Fernando is very much a kept boy. A fantasy, really.
When Fernando eventually realizes Jennifer will never claim him publicly as her boyfriend, he pulls away. He wants to make it in America on his own terms. That withdrawal punctures Jennifer’s carefully curated world. And from there, the two begin an erotic dance: She stalks him, manipulating him back into her life; he can’t resist her — on the stairs, on the kitchen counter, on the floor.
But in winning back her toy, Jennifer gets sloppy. Upon discovering the relationship, her father tells her, without tact: “I’m happy that you help immigrants. You know, I’m all in for that. But there are limits.” In other words: Toys and boys are fine, but anything more? Not in this rarefied air. Just like that, as Fernando is positioned to take the lead in a major new ballet in San Francisco, ICE comes calling at the stage doors.
It’s the beginning of an end that feels destined from the start. Whether Jennifer and her family are talking business in the boardroom, being flown or being fed, Mexicans are serving. They are the janitors, the cooks, the waitstaff. And Jennifer is no romantic hero; when Fernando chats in Spanish with a waiter, she grows incensed that he’s left her out of the conversation and insists he speak only English around her. Meanwhile, to register even a simple sentence in her lover’s language, she’s a slave to Google Translate. Even desire, the film suggests, is controlled by empire.
Tonally, Dreams is sparse and soft-spoken, simmering with dread. The eroticism is charged, hungry and occasionally uncomfortable, but so are the stakes. In today’s political climate, the sex feels risky, even a little indecent, freighted with questions of consent and class. At times, the symbolism veers toward heavy-handed, but the intimacy at the film’s core is undeniable, giving it a pulse many contemporary thrillers lack.
One of the film’s sharpest truths comes from Fernando’s friend, who cuts through the hypocrisy with brutal clarity: “Fucking gringos, man. We cross the border, we wipe their asses, and they’re fine with that. But you take a job from one of them, and they kick you to the curb.” It’s a sentiment that’s never hit harder.
Dreams may not be subtle, but it is precise — beautifully shot, emotionally bruising and unafraid to show the audience how we’re complicit in this system. It’s an erotic thriller with real consequences, where lust curdles into ownership and desire exposes the rot beneath liberal benevolence. Confronting, yes. But also necessary.
