Nicolas Cage goes from saving pigs to counting sheep in this black comedy about a man who appears in multiple people’s dreams.

Dream Scenario is presumably based on the “This Man” phenomenon, where thousands of people supposedly saw the same man in their dreams. Playing such a character marks another self-referential move by Nic Cage, who is of course a meme himself. But like so many movies based on memes (Slender Man, Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever, Drake: Homecoming), the end result is disappointing, squandering its high concept in a manner reminiscent of Downsizing or The Lobster.

Writer/director Kristoffer Borgli aims for Charlie Kaufmanesque satire, but the film is neither funny nor weird enough to keep your own dreams at bay. Although the intriguing premise raises timely themes around celebrity, cancel culture and social media, the ideas feel too half-baked and short-lived to haunt your thoughts for long. And narratively the movie runs out of dream-steam, tacking on a different film at the end that makes lethargic attempt at influencer parody.

At the centre of this night-meh is another irritating performance from Cage, who brings his usual level of subtlety (ie. none) to a role that requires at least some. While he has the pathetic part down, Cage misses all the nuance that John Cusack and Philip Seymour Hoffman brought to Kaufman’s unfortunate characters. Just as it prefers to take shallow shots at influencers than to explore any real substance, Dream Scenario would rather have the notoriety of Nicolas Cage than an actor. To quote Inception (or at least another meme), it needs to go deeper.