My Dreams of You - Hallmark

If you thought Junebug was whimsical, with an imaginary 8-year-old child popping up everywhere, this week’s new movie tops it with an entire establishment called Dream Central where people are busy taking our life’s experiences and using bits of our memories to set up our dreams for the night. But what happens when a rookie up there makes a mistake and someone down here dreams of falling in love with someone she’s not even supposed to know…or is she? I know not everyone agrees, but I had a lot of fun watching this week. And, as usual, I’ve got a lot of things to say about it too, so let’s dive right in and get to it!

Hi, I’m Stephanie and this is the Magical Movie Club - a place to come and chat about new, and sometimes classic, Hallmark movies. This week we watched My Dreams of You, starring Skylar Samuels and Kapil Talwalkar. Kevin Fair directed this one. Earlier this year he also directed Legend of the Lost Locket, which I enjoyed, as well as For Love and Honey, that one not so much. So I had no idea what to expect with this one.

The movie opens with Grace sitting in a coffee shop. I noticed right off the bat that the scene was shot with a hazy filter. And based on that observation, plus the title of the movie, I had a feeling it was a dream sequence. A man walks in, whom she recognizes, and she pushes out a chair to invite him to sit with her. It’s apparent that they’ve met before but they hardly know each other. For example, this is his first time in this coffee shop. And, while he already knows her name, she doesn’t know his, and that surprises him. So, he tells her it’s Michael. But just as he’s telling her his last name an alarm goes off and, you probably see where this is going, she wakes up. 

And by the way, I love that old-time, classic alarm clock!

After she wakes up and goes downstairs we learn that she lives with her sister, Becky. Becky is an attorney and Grace, well she works odd jobs through a temp agency. It’s kind of unreliable and has trouble paying her share of the bills. Her dream is to become a writer. Not very original for Hallmark, especially one week after Junebug, but we’ll just roll with it.

She asks her sister if she knows anyone named Michael because she’s been dreaming about him every night this week and can’t figure out why or how she might know him.

On their way to work they both stop at Julia’s, the coffee shop that appeared in Grace’s dream, and for a brief moment she thought she might have seen Michael there.  But no, when the mystery man turned around it wasn’t Michael after all.

Now Becky is a bit of a protective big sister and wants Grace to get out there and meet new people. As a matter of fact, Becky arranges for her to go on a semi-blind date that evening after work. But no matter how hard Becky tries, Grace can’t get Michael off her mind or even figure out where may have seen him before. And Grace is convinced she must have seen him from somewhere, because where else do dreams come from?! 

That leads us into the perfect segue to Dream Central. Yes, Dream Central. I enjoyed this concept. It’s a place where they "work hard to make tonight’s dreams, today." In this scene we see a group of new recruits on a tour of Dream Central where they will learn how to build the framework for dreams, which are built on memories.

And get this - all of our memories, every minute of every day, are stored in their library on VHS tapes. I know it sounds hokey, but somehow I found this amusing.

It’s here that we also learn, and this was such a Doc Brown moment coming up, that dreams must be constructed from our memories alone. No one new can be introduced into our dreams or the consequences would be…well, dire. 

You thought he was going to say “disastrous” didn’t you?!

I have to say I thought this Dream Central office was so much fun.  Just look at the sign, the font is from what, the 1950s? And it’s on a wood-paneled wall like the 70s. The men’s suits, though I’m not sure about the bright colors, and their glasses look like they came out of the 60s, maybe? The black-and-white TVs hooked up to VCRs on the desks, and even the rotary dial telephones, are all retro! It’s like everything about their lives up in Dream Central are based on generations of our memories. 

Seriously, whoever came up with this idea had a lot of fun in mind. The credits say it’s based on a story by Gary Templeton. And the only Gary Templeton I know of used to play for the Padres! But the teleplay is credited to Marcy Holland, and she has written a lot of successful movies for Hallmark, including A Biltmore Christmas and all of the Time to Come Home for Christmas movies. I didn’t even know all this before.

Now back to the review. This is where we meet Alura. She works up in Dream Central and she’s posting sticky notes all over her desk and plugging in VHS tapes of Grace’s life.  So clearly, she’s in charge of Grace’s dreams. On a quick side note, did you notice that editing snafu? Alura was saying PROM DRESS but the sticky note said SPRING FORMAL DRESS. Anyway, when Harvey, her supervisor comes over to talk to her we find out she’s only been at this for a month. She’s a new graduate who double-majored in, get this, Lucid Slumber and Whimsy, with a minor in Political Science! Isn’t that cute?!

Well, back on Earth - you know I can’t believe I just said that about a Hallmark movie - Grace is showing up for her first day on the new temp job. She thought it would be a data entry position. But in reality, she was told to carry out some old computer monitors that were being replaced up on the 6th floor. And she was wearing nice high heels. Oh, and the elevators were out, too. Fun, huh?!

After work she meets her blind date at a fancy restaurant, but it’s obvious she can’t stop thinking about Michael. And, even more obvious, was the fact that this date wasn’t going anywhere when she told him she was working for a temp agency and his reaction was similar to her sister, Becky’s. Clearly he wasn’t any more impressed by her than she was with him.

Well, after she got home and was drifting off to sleep again, she dreamt of being back on that date. But this time she was wearing a much fancier dress AND she found Michael over at the bar. So she ditched the date while he was still talking to run over to join Michael.

Now, the conversation fascinated me because she’s talking to him as though she was completely aware that she was dreaming. Like, her dress for example. She remembered she wore that dress not on her actual date but to her spring formal, and she even said, “I guess my subconscious has notes.”

I don’t know if that’s common, but I can only remember a couple of times in my life when I was actually aware that I was dreaming while I was in the dream. Is that typical for you? I’m really curious about that if you’d like to comment on that below.

So the next night she was talking to her sister and mentioned she had dreamt about Michael 8 nights in a row now. Her sister was understandably concerned and said, "Please tell me that’s not the reason you’re not seeing John again."

Well, finally, we get to see the real Michael. Michael Roy. He’s a musician playing a gig at a place called Joey’s Tavern in Grand Rapids.

While he’s playing on stage we see Alura, back at Dream Central, popping a tape of Michael out of the VCR and when she puts the tape back in its sleeve to put away, she notices the sleeve is actually meant for Grace’s tape.

And that’s when she panics because it means the tapes got mixed up! Which I’m pretty sure means some of Michael’s memories got recorded onto Grace’s tape. And as we learned earlier, that could be bad. So she runs straight to Harvey to tell him about it.

Meanwhile, the next day - Grace is still carrying out computer monitors at work when she gets the bad news from her agent telling her none of the publishers accepted her book proposal. He also suggests, just like her sister had, that she get out more, travel,  LIVE more. More specifically, he says, “You need to find a story worth telling.”

And to top it off, at the end of the day her car won’t start. I know, not original. It happens in almost all Hallmark movies. I guess the point here is she’s having a very bad day.

Her sister really tries to help. She wants to be supportive but she also wants her sister to be happy and financially stable. And clearly, she’s neither of those. Becky even convinces Grace that she must have created Michael as a fantasy because she’s so dissatisfied with her own life.

When Grace falls asleep again, this time on the couch while she’s watching a movie, she dreams that she’s IN the movie. I would love to dream that I’m in a movie. A Hallmark movie would be awesome!

Now this is where Grace actually meets Harvey and Alura. Not surprisingly, Grace doesn’t believe anything Harvey has to say until he mentions Michael. That’s when he takes her up to Dream Central and explains that Alura, as her case manager, sets the scene in her dreams with familiar sights and sounds. And she accidentally put Michael in there. 

But all Grace hears is that Michael is real!

Unfortunately, Harvey insists that there is a remedy - and that is she needs to forget Michael. But she has to agree to it. So you might be thinking why would she agree? Well, that happens much later.

First she looks him up online and sets out to go find him - at Joey’s Tavern. 

Unfortunately, that first meeting didn’t go as well as she had hoped. He didn’t know her at all. But even after she left disappointed, we could see that that meeting left an impression on him.

She ended up going to a local diner where we met a waitress who told her she’d heard it all before. Well that was obviously only until now.

But then guess who also came into the diner and noticed Grace right away? Michael! They get to talking a little bit but still, things are not going really well. The Dream Police, as Grace calls them, are still out there looking for her.

So, after they spent a delightful evening together at the diner and then later at a local street fair in Grand Rapids, Grace makes a surprise decision to hop on a train with him to, get this, Portland, Oregon to avoid being seen by Harvey and Alura who are getting closer to finding them.

But this gives us a chance to find out a little bit more about Michael while they’re on the train. He mentioned this had been his last music gig because he was going to go work for his uncle. Obviously, Grace is disappointed that he’s giving up on his dream of becoming a musician.

While Grace and Michael travel across the country they both seem so happy together, and Alura notices it, too. She’s even starting to have second thoughts about interfering with Grace and Michael now. Especially when she sees them kissing in the rain in the park. How romantic was that?!

Now I know this was not a Hallmark masterpiece. But it was fun. And the ending was much more climactic than last week’s movie. As whimsical as this was, I actually found myself invested in Grace and Michael’s love story. Of course I knew they would end up together, but the fact that they had to completely forget each other first, I didn’t know how they’d get there again and I couldn’t walk away this time.

Oh that’s right! Why exactly did Grace agree to forget Michael? It has to do with how his life would turn out if she didn’t. And, in true love’s fashion, she couldn’t let that happen to him.

I was also invested in the side story involving Alura. In the beginning she was so enthusiastic about working at Dream Central. And it was fun to see the world through her eyes for a day while she experienced all these little things that we take for granted for the first time. Like petting a cat, or tasting apple pie. There was a surprisingly good message hidden in there about enjoying the little pleasures in life more often. But later on she lost all her passion for the job after she messed things up. I kind of wanted things to work out for her, too.

And, interestingly enough, I found myself thinking about something Harvey said. That dreams are like a game, they’ll lay out all the pieces for us, but we still need to play the game. 

Sometimes I think life itself is like that, too. It’s funny how a silly movie like this got me thinking more philosophically about life!

I’ll admit, Michael’s character was probably the least interesting of all of them this time. But I was still getting goosebumps when he walked away near the very end. 

Even though I knew what would happen next, it didn’t seem to matter. The look on Alura’s face with the little tear falling when she saw him turn around was priceless!

So I’ll admit, coming up with a rating for this one was challenging. Was the acting great? Not particularly. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t spectacular, either. But you know, if I go with my initial reaction I have to give it a 4. And I know, I gave Junebug a 4, too. But this week I just had so much more fun watching this movie than I have in awhile and that has to count for something. Plus, I felt some emotion at the end. Those are always my favorites. Not to mention, this one got me thinking philosophically just as much as Junebug did. 

In my opinion, there are great messages in the stories of both Junebug and My Dreams of you. Stay with me here, I’ll explain what I mean. Both the lead characters in these movies wanted to be writers. But Juniper pursued a career in editing, and she was very successful. She thought she was happy, but she had completely given up on writing for years, decades even.

Grace, on the other hand, was so focused on becoming a writer that she refused to commit to anything else and she wasted several years of her life not doing anything. It’s like she was at a complete stand-still, putting her life on hold. That’s certainly not living, and that’s exactly what her friends and family were trying to tell her, too. So perhaps the answer lies somewhere in between. Finding the right balance between following our hearts and still thinking with our heads, too.    

See what I mean? These movies have got me really thinking philosophically!

So how about you? I’ve already seen some opinions and I think this was truly a hit or a miss from the viewers, with absolutely no gray area in between. I just happened to be one who loved it. And I hope that’s okay with you.

Well I think that wraps up my review of My Dreams of You. Coming up next we'll be watching and talking about A Costa Rican Wedding starring Rhiannon Fish and Christopher Russell. I don’t know what to expect out of that one. The description makes me cringe a little, but I promise I’ll keep an open mind and maybe I’ll be delightfully surprised again like I was this week! 

Until then, and as always, thank you so much for being here and being a part of the Magical Movie Club. We'll be back next week to chat more about our favorite magical movies!

Hallmark Channel's Original Preview:  My Dreams of You - Preview

Hallmark Channel Movie Site: My Dreams of You