Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3572 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-01-18
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Special Edition, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Spanish, French
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 113 minutes

From Amazon.com
Robin Williams and Annabella Sciorra star in this visually stunning metaphysical tale of life after death. Neurologist Chris and artist Annie had the perfect life until they lost their children in an auto accident; they're just starting to recover when Chris meets an untimely death himself. He's met by a messenger named Albert (Cuba Gooding Jr.) and taken to his own personal afterlife--a freshly drawn world reminiscent of Annie's own artwork, still dripping and wet with paint. Meanwhile a depressed Annie takes her own life, compelling Chris to traverse heaven and hell to save Annie from an eternity of despair.

The multitextured visuals seem to have been created from a lost fairy tale. Heaven recalls the landscape paintings of Thomas Cole and Renaissance architecture complete with floating cherubs, while hell is a massive shipwreck, an upside-down cathedral overgrown with thorns and a sea of groaning faces popping out of the ground (one of those faces is German director Werner Herzog). Williams is the perfect actor to play against the imaginative computer-generated imagery--he himself is a human special effect. But the lack of chemistry between Williams and Sciorra is painfully apparent, and the flashback plot structure flattens the story's impact despite its deeply felt examinations of the heart and the spirit. Still, there's no denying Eugenio Zanetti's triumphant production design and the Oscar-winning special effects, which create a fully formed universe that is at once beautiful, eerie, and a unique example of movie magic. --Shannon Gee

Review
The Vincent Ward-directed What Dreams May Come had the misfortune of arriving just as public tolerance for Robin Williams in sentimental roles was waning dramatically. Though the much-seen Patch Adams was still to come,Dreams doubtlessly suffered from the rejection of those already burned by Fathers' Day, Jack, and their ilk -- which is too bad. Though the film treads the dangerous line between spirituality and kitsch, its deeply imaginative vision of the afterlife is both memorable -- especially the production design -- and moving. In many ways, it's a triumph of low expectations. Williams, Sciorra, and Gooding all turn in affecting performances. Similarly, screenwriter Ronald Bass may seem like the wrong person to tame the New Age qualities of Richard Matheson's story but, like the work of Krystof Kieslowski (if not quite in the same league) and the film The Sixth Sense, Ward proves that bad metaphysics can be converted into highly effective metaphors. Though not without its excesses, any film that can get away with scenes of a despondent Williams wandering paradise with his beloved pooch demonstrates an admirable ability to succeed on its own unique terms. Look fast for Werner Herzog as one of Hell's lost souls. ~ Keith Phipps, All Movie Guide

On the DVD
ccDual interactive menu screens
Director's commentary
About the visual effects
Making-of featurette
Alternate ending
Photo gallery
Cast & crew
Biographies and filmographies
Production information
Theatrical trailers
DVD-ROM features include Windows 95/98 wallpaper and Macintosh destop images

Customer Reviews

Early Afternoon Matinee
The dreams that came to me while watching the newfound romance in hell movie What Dreams May Come came to me as a sort of shock. Being of only fourteen years of age now I was only around ten when I first saw this movie on an early afternoon matinee on a local television station while I was left at home alone. My sister being thirteen had a life of her own with her friends and my mother and father were either at work or shopping for supplies for their work. What Dreams May Come gave me a basis of an idea for an afterlife since my parents don't agree on a church to go to, and I hadn't gone since my first communion-me being a catholic from my mother's side of the family. After my mother got home that day I told her about the movie and at first she was a little concerned- it as though she wasn't sure if I should've been exposed to a movie with that kind of content since I was "only a little girl" to put it in her words. Later that night she pulled me out of bed and we had the first real discussion that we had ever had on the subject of death, christ, heaven, hell, and purgatory. It wasn't two weeks later that we rented the movie and had the whole family (with the exception of my Dad for twenty minutes) sit down and watch it together. This is more of a thank you than a review, but thank you.

Love and Death
This is a story about death. Chris and Anne meet and get children. The children die in a car crash, and their mom never forgives herself for not bringing them to school themselves. Chris (played by Robin Williams) dies himself in a freak accident when he wants to help someone. She herself kills herself later.

Chris ends up in heaven, which looks like the paintings his wife makes. Their he meets a sort of guardian angel played by Cuba Gooding. But he is still not happy, he loves his wife and wants her back but unfortunately: suicides go to hell. But through undying love he gets her back to heaven.

The colors and the settings are beautiful, the artwork is amazing and therefore alone worth watching. The ending is however a little too cheasy. The DVD has a different and sadder ending, it would have made the movie better but Hollywood probably thought it a bad idea.

If you like dreamy movies about what is and what is not real: this movie is for you.

Those who grieve over a suicide - beware
There are a significant number of movies that are heart warming, supportive and life giving . . . for families bereaved by suicide . . . this is not one of them. As a therapist, I have had to work through the trauma experienced by a number of my clients because of this movie. So . . . I decided to go and see it myself . . . and I agree with them. This movie is a sad attempt . . . through visual dramatics . . . to help people know that this life is not the end, but wow! not in this manner please.