Dreams in Nightmares, the second feature from director Shatara Michelle Ford, is a fantastic road trip drama, one very different from most in that mini-genre. It’s the story of three queer Black women driving across the country, in search of their missing fourth friend. There are some laughs, some tension, but most notably there are surprises, including where they end up going.
Z (Denée Benton) is a recently laid-off creative writing professor in Southern California who decides to visit friends in New York, including uptight corporate executive Tasha (Sasha Compère) and her trans poet roommate, Lauren (Dezi Bing). None of them have heard from their fourth friend, the artist Kel, in months, so on the spur of the moment take a long road trip to track Kel down, possibly in Iowa. This might sound like Girls Trip, and while there’s some humor and camaraderie, the tone’s different.
I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen the director’s first film, Test Pattern, and don’t think I had any familiarity with any of these performers before, most of whom have spent the last few years on TV series or in theater productions. But they’re all excellent, portraying different flavors of Black queer femmehood.
Dreams in Nightmares keeps zigging when I expected it to zag. The women, throughout, make it clear that they’re not comfortable driving through the rural Midwest in this particular day and age. But we never get a scene of an uncomfortable confrontation with backwoods hicks.
It’s established that Z’s in a polyamorous relationship with the world’s sweetest and most supportive male partner (Charlie Barnett), although he has another partner and Z’s been known to pick up ladies at martial arts classes. The movies haven’t traditionally been so kind to that sort of relationship, usually either treating it as a punchline or as a type of relationship that’s doomed to jealousy and failure. But this film never takes that turn, even on multiple occasions when we expect it might.
There are other surprises, including a sequence where the movie stops for seven minutes for a raunchy but moving poetry reading (by a performer named Joss Barton), as well as the entire third act, which goes in a direction, and to a location, that you probably won’t see coming.
Other sequences are more conventional but still entertaining, including a visit to Kel’s ex-girlfriend, the Iowa Writers Project denizen Sabrina (Jasmin Savoy Brown), and their conservative parents (Regina Taylor and Robert Wisdom), who are portrayed as unaccepting but not monstrous. I liked how one of the women looks obviously uncomfortable and angry for a long stretch of the movie, and we know that’s leading up to something that pays off.
A debut two years ago at Philadelphia’s BlackStar Film Festival, Dreams in Nightmares is rolling out slowly, including just a one-night-only showing in my hometown. But this deserves to find a word-of-mouth audience.