A few years ago, I saw a quietly shattering debut feature called Test Pattern, from the writer and director Shatara Michelle Ford. Set mostly in the hours following a sexual assault, the movie was full of sharp, damning insights into how America's healthcare and law-enforcement systems routinely fail Black women.
In their second feature, Dreams in Nightmares, Ford has lightened the mood and loosened the tension. This is a warm, sprawling, sweetly bickersome comedy-drama about a group of close friends who, at a turning point in their lives, decide to hit the road together. But Ford remains focused on the physical and emotional well-being of their characters — in this case, four queer Black friends in their mid-30s.
The one we get to know best is Z, a Los Angeles-based writer, played by Denée Benton from The Gilded Age, who's just been laid off from her job as a professor. By unhappy coincidence, Z's Brooklyn-based friend Tasha, played by Sasha Compère, loses her consulting gig around the same time.
On a whim, Z flies to New York to hang with Tasha and their friend Lauren, played by Dezi Bing. From there, the three hop in a car and drive west to Iowa City to visit their friend Kel, who's an artist. Kel hasn't returned the group's texts and calls in a while, and they want to make sure that they're OK.
Despite the last-minute decision, Lauren, Tasha and Z embark on their trip with a sense of purpose and a measure of caution. They know they'll have to be on alert, especially when traveling outside major cities. Early on, too, Lauren insists that, whenever possible, the three of them will eat only at Black-owned restaurants. At one such eatery, they sit down at a table and find a cup filled with strips of paper, each one printed with a conversation-starting question, prompting a discussion about whether their favorite attributes about themselves are physical or not.
Z and Lauren are both pursuing their artistic dreams: Lauren is a poet, as we hear firsthand when they perform at a queer poetry slam during a quick stopover in Pittsburgh. Meanwhile, Z wonders if her layoff is the motivation she needs to finally write that book she's been planning.
Tasha, by contrast, is the practical-minded, no-nonsense member of the group, and she sometimes finds herself at odds with her more free-spirited friends. We learn that, at one point, Tasha wanted to become an actor, a dream she gave up for what she thought would be a steadier career in business.
On paper, that might sound too obvious — the bohemian artistes versus the high-strung corporate sellout. But the actors, especially Compère as Tasha, are too vivid to be reduced to mere types, and there's more joy and solidarity in the characters' dynamic than there is resentment or tension.
As in many road trip movies, the journey has its share of twists and turns. We learn that Kel left Iowa City some time ago, and so the friends have to spend a stormy night, in every sense, with Kel's annoying ex-girlfriend. She's played, in a scene-stealing comic turn, by Jasmin Savoy Brown.
From there, they head south to Kansas City and have an awkward visit with Kel's estranged and very conservative parents, who clearly have yet to accept their child's queer identity. Without revealing exactly where the story goes, we do eventually meet Kel, who, as warmly played by Mars Storm Rucker, makes it easy to see why Z and Lauren care about them so deeply. We also see why Tasha feels resentful of, and perhaps even threatened by, Kel's sense of freedom.
And freedom is ultimately what Dreams in Nightmares is all about — the hope that these four characters and many others like them might be able to live life on their own terms. Throughout this intimate and gorgeously shot film, Ford shows us glimpses of that freedom — like when Tasha enjoys a rare moment of release at a Brooklyn nightclub. Or when Z checks in with her boyfriend in LA, with whom she enjoys a mutually supportive polyamorous relationship.
Most of all, there's freedom in Z's lyrical visions of a mysterious desert landscape, which appear throughout the film, calling her toward some unknown yet promising destination. In a way, this is what Ford longs to give all their characters — the time, space and imagination to dream of a future that still has yet to be written.
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