When Nicolás (Henry Golding) wakes from his dream, Daniela (Beatrice Grannò) is gone. It wasn’t some crazy adventure or anything, either. Just the two of them remembering the first time they met. The playback is imperfect. Or, at least, he thinks it is. How can we ever truly remember every little detail anyway? Or that what we thought was cool and funny didn’t actually come off as cruel? All we have is the sense of what we had. The bad times made worse and the good times made better. Our emotions are not quite clouding reality; perhaps protecting us from it. Because the memory is what lingers. It’s what we hold dear.
So when Victoria (Nathalie Poza) tells Nicolás there’s an experimental treatment that can help him cope with the fact that a memory of Daniela is all he has left, he jumps at the chance. Because he doesn’t want to forget her. He simply wants to be able to remember without the crippling ache that follows. Before he can begin, however, fate decides to throw a curveball. Rather than read the doctors’ prompt that’s meant to steer the lucid dream their pill is about to commence, Nicolás looks at a picture of his late love. Thus he doesn’t follow the plan towards acceptance––he dives headlong into the deep end of denial.
Written and directed by Nacho Vigalondo, Daniela Forever transports Nicolás into a realm of his own making that starts with her. Daniela is the sole solid object in a world of swirling gray static surrounding a void of nothingness. Then she’s the second lead of a meticulously rendered façade that begins to look like the real world without any means of interaction. Gradually this dreamscape becomes more fluid. It shows Nicolás everything that’s been etched in his mind and the gaps with which he can fill by studying them upon waking up. If we didn’t know any better we’d assume he’s attempting to recreate life in this vacuum so that he can continue living his same life with one difference: Daniela is still alive.
The ingenious part of the script is not that Nicolás can feasibly do exactly that. After all, it’s a science fiction fantasy––he can literally do whatever he wants with minimal suspension of belief on our part. What makes Daniela Forever so captivating is that Vigalondo doesn’t shy from the truth that there cannot ever be just one difference. Not when this parallel world is solely of Nicolás’ making. That’s the fallacy of memory. The evil of yearning. Whereas Nicolás thinks he’s merely stitching her back, she’s not real. This Daniela is a piece of him––an approximation, a cypher––and if what his mind allows her to do ever makes him mad, he can snap his fingers and start again.
This isn’t a love story. It’s a nightmare. Not for Nicolás, but for Daniela. Well, not for her either––she’ll never remember what it is he’s doing to change who she was to fit that which he wants right now. Then I suppose it’s really a nightmare for us. Because he’s an easy character to hate. And you will hate him. When she gets confused, he tells her to forget the conversation. When she inexplicably starts to exist away from his field of vision, he demands to know where she was instead. He keeps telling himself that this dream world is capable of replacing reality, but we know its sole purpose is to keep his Daniela frozen in time. He’s killing her himself with every selfish command.
Vigalondo has a ton of fun with the premise of two worlds by changing both aspect ratio and fidelity. The real world of Nicolás’ depression is full-frame, VHS-quality videotape. The utopia of his creation is widescreen high-definition. Until, of course, his conscious recognition of this plan not quite working allows them to overlap and switch places. This is simultaneously a good development––it means the construct is no longer maintaining the lie that the therapy, albeit incorrectly used, is working––and a bad one: it threatens to destroy his very sanity, if not his will to live. Because he could end everything by removing himself from the equation. Doing so might even set her free.
How? I’m not sure. I don’t think the movie is either. But, like I said, anything is possible with some suspension of disbelief. So go with it. Let the emotions of the moment take over your logical desire to pick apart any shortcomings that exist. Because there are plot holes and the tone is a bit unhinged at moments, with Golding giving a performance at which I’m still uncertain whether we’re supposed to laugh intentionally or not. It works, though, when he’s doing insane things. He’s literally become God of his own reality and the more he plays the more malicious he becomes regardless of whether he realizes it himself. He will. And the result’s subversion of our expectations proves a resounding success.
Daniela Forever premiered at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.
The post TIFF Review: In Nacho Vigalondo’s Daniela Forever, a Romantic Dreamscape Turns Nightmarish first appeared on The Film Stage.
