It seems that Schwartzman the filmmaker, a rocker who has spent nearly his whole professional career playing feel-good pop/indie-rock to screaming fans in huge venues, wishes to make a movie that’s immediately accessible and whose fun also comes from not taking itself too seriously.
The Coppola-Schwartzman family counts among their clan some of Hollywood’s most famous and talented filmmakers. Patriarch Francis Ford Coppola (“The Godfather”) and daughter Sofia (“Lost in Translation”) have created some of the most classic and critically-acclaimed movies of our time. On the other side of the family, Jason Schwartzman (“Rushmore”) has also contributed to making some of the most beautiful and important movies of cinema to date with pal Wes Anderson.
Now, we have Jason’s brother Robert Schwartzman (you might remember him as Anne Hathaway’s prince charming in “The Princess Diaries”) entering the family business with his first feature film “Dreamland,” the story of a young male whose moonlighting as a Hotel lounge piano player brings on the advances of a wealthy socialite and upends his life. While it might not be the next introduction of as artfully-minded a filmmaker as the rest of his family, “Dreamland” is light-hearted fun in the vein of a young male coming-of-age.
With a name like Monty Fagan (Johnny Simmons), it might be fate that he’s supposed to be a suave, famous lounge piano player. Instead, young Monty is an aloof guy in a declining relationship with girlfriend Lizzie (Frankie Shaw), whose boring love life has all but stalled out due to living with Lizzie’s wino and wig-wearing mother (Beverly D’Angelo). Monty drives to teach piano classes on his sputtering motor scooter to pay the bills, a pit-stop on the road to his true dream of playing jazz at his own nightclub, which seems like pie-in-the-sky dream when he learns of Lizzie’s momentary weakness with another man. So when Monty is offered a primo piano-playing gig at a swanky Hotel and catches the eye of one wealthy cougar Olivia (Amy Landecker), who pursues him as a young boy-toy, Monty’s head is left spinning to make sense of his new affair and the checks she gives him for his someday night club: Dreamland.
Robert Schwartzman’s directorial debut is a charming, light-hearted coming of age story whose strengths come from the fun performances and a well-layered indie soundtrack (the Rooney frontman has composed original music for film before, lastly in Gia Coppola’s “Palo Alto” based on the James Franco memoir). However, a movie about a young male’s passion for making music takes too much of a backseat to the Mrs. Robinson story happening, and we wish we could see more of Monty jazzing it up on the piano, or even hearing those jazz standards fill more of the movie’s sonic space.
Typically playing more bit parts like in “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” and “The Stanford Prison Experiment,” Johnny Simmons has a chance to take the lead role here, dialing in his trademark boyish young charms to a fun degree while also playing more conflicted shades in the movie’s climax. Amy Landecker as Olivia plays the seductress in full-tilt commitment, steaming up the screen when showing her skin, and showing the frustrations in her life as well. Beverly D’Angelo makes good fun out of her wine-pouring weirdo character, and further bit roles filled by stand-up comedian Nick Thune as a homewrecker plumber and Noel Wells (“Master of None”) as the Hotel’s receptionist extend the fun. And of course, Robert cuts his own family in, having Jason Schwartzman cameo as Monty’s dooshy but hilarious bank loaner Peter and Talia Shire making it in for a hear-to-hear phone conversation as Monty’s mother.
“Dreamland” may lean more towards bargain-barrel entertainment, but it’s still a fun pop riff to catch if you don’t mind the fluff. It seems that Schwartzman the filmmaker, a rocker who has spent nearly his whole professional career playing feel-good pop/indie-rock to screaming fans in huge venues, wishes to make a movie that’s immediately accessible and whose fun also comes from not taking itself too seriously. In this vein (and like Monty), the most rewarding part of this piece is the achievment that Schwartzman has created his very own Dreamland.
84 minutes. “Dreamland” is now playing in select theaters including Laemmle’s Santa Monica Film Center and available to stream on VOD including Amazon Video.
