{"id":356823,"date":"2025-12-18T20:50:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T20:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/356823\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T20:50:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T20:50:09","slug":"jessica-chastains-affair-with-an-illegal-immigrant-in-michel-francos-erotic-drama-world-of-reel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/356823\/","title":{"rendered":"Jessica Chastain\u2019s Affair With an Illegal Immigrant in Michel Franco\u2019s Erotic Drama \u2014 World of Reel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s a trailer<\/a> for Michel Franco\u2019s \u201cDreams,\u201d starring Jessica Chastain, Isaac Hern\u00e1ndez and Rupert Friend, which can be seen below.<\/p>\n

The erotic drama debuted at the 2025 Berlin Film Festival, where it left without any prizes from the Todd Haynes\u2013led jury, and earlier this year it ultimately landed a distribution deal with Greenwich Entertainment. The film arrives in theaters on February 27, 2026. <\/p>\n

I used to be a skeptic of Franco\u2019s brand of morose cinema. However, his last two films \u2014 \u201cSundown\u201d and \u201cMemory\u201d \u2014were very good, and \u201cDreams,\u201d which world premiered in February at the Berlinale, looks very promising.<\/p>\n

In fact, the film barely screened at any North American festival after Berlin. There was a bow at Hamptons in October, a few regional fests like New Hampshire and Montclair, but that\u2019s about it. I look forward to finally catching up with it soon.<\/p>\n

In \u201cDreams,\u201d Chastain portrays a privileged San Francisco arts benefactor who has been insulated from hardship by her influential father. Deeply invested in the ballet world, she becomes involved with a far younger up-and-coming dancer (Hern\u00e1ndez) during a supposed work trip to Mexico City. The affair spirals when he attempts a perilous, unauthorized border crossing to reach her. Predictably, the situation unravels. _<\/p>\n

Deadline<\/a>\u2019s review of \u201cDreams\u201d claimed Franco is \u201cskewer[ing] woke hypocrisy\u201d \u2014 though it\u2019s unclear what exactly that even entails. It\u2019s obviously a very topical film that will bring in much debate whenever it gets released. Raves also came in from IndieWire<\/a>, THR<\/a>, The Guardian<\/a>, and Screen<\/a>. Meanwhile, The Playlist<\/a> hated the film. <\/p>\n

If you haven\u2019t been keeping up with Franco\u2019s recent work, it\u2019s worth a revisit \u2014 these films have flown under the radar. His stark, Haneke-like worldview isn\u2019t for everyone, and he certainly has his detractors, but there\u2019s no question he\u2019s been honing his craft in recent years. <\/p>\n

The shock value is still there, but it\u2019s more controlled now, more deliberate. Franco seems less interested in provocation for its own sake and more focused on crafting a sustained, suffocating mood. It\u2019s been a quiet evolution, but a significant one. <\/p>\n

Franco, who\u2019s had three of his last four films premiere in Venice competition, was once a regular at Cannes, with four earlier films debuting across the festival\u2019s key sections. He first appeared in Directors\u2019 Fortnight with \u201cDaniel and Ana\u201d (2009), won Un Certain Regard with \u201cAfter Lucia\u201d (2012), and took Best Screenplay in competition for \u201cChronic\u201d (2015). He returned in 2017 with \u201cApril\u2019s Daughter,\u201d which earned the Jury Prize in Un Certain Regard. Over the years, Franco has quietly become one of Mexico\u2019s more interesting auteurs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s a trailer for Michel Franco\u2019s \u201cDreams,\u201d starring Jessica Chastain, Isaac Hern\u00e1ndez and Rupert Friend, which can be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356824,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,134,344],"class_list":{"0":"post-356823","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}