BFF Review: In Your Dreams!

A leader of a group of teenagers who engage in parkour is the love interest for a 16 year old girl both in reality and in her dreams.

As her divorced mother is courted by a perfect male companion, Laura (Barbora Štikarová) is having a tough time in her romantic pursuit of Luky (Toman Rychtera) who proves to be elusive even when she is dreaming.  The situation becomes surreal for the smitten teenager when the imagine events seem to have an influence on incidents that really do occur.

There is feeling of natural chemistry with Laura and her best friend Kaja (Veronika Pouchová) which is a far more interesting relationship than the one that drives the story as Luky comes across as a rather dull personality.  As much as it is nice to have breathing room from shot to shot the pacing suffers as the movie plods along.  The dream sequences are novel at first but become rather repetitive, thereby, undercutting their dramatic impact.

What is obvious is that Czech filmmaker Petr Oukropec has a great eye for composition and a keen ability for mixing wide shots that give a sense of place with mid shots which position the audience right next to the characters as events unfold in their lives.  The elevator motif is maintained throughout allowing for it to become the accepted bridge between the real and dream worlds.  If Oukropec could elevate his storytelling to the sophisticated level of his imagery then that would be a dream come true for the world of cinema.

Trevor Hogg is a freelance video editor and writer who currently resides in Canada; he can be found at LinkedIn.