SXSW Review: “DreamQuil”

DreamQuil (Alex Prager, 2026) 2 out of 5 stars

Artificial intelligence is all around us, whether we want it to be or not. Throughout human history, different forms of art have helped people process changes in the world and, through insightful creative commentary, offered perspectives that shed light on new phenomena. Unfortunately, DreamQuil, the debut feature from Alex Prager, though it follows in that tradition, proves neither insightful nor novel enough in its approach to the issues at stake.

Elizabeth Banks (Call Jane)—always watchable—stars as Carol, a very unhappy wife and mother who takes refuge in her apartment’s VR cubicle for simulated sex with a hunky lover not her husband. That spouse is Gary, played by a miscast (or at least uncompelling) John C. Reilly (Stan & Ollie). Carol has hopes to “make partner” at her (unspecified) job, though we never see her work (or do much at all). Mostly, she just mopes around, deeply dissatisfied.

In this slightly futuristic world, where climate change has made the city air unbreathable (so, as much throwback to the smog years as post-apocalyptic vision), most social interactions with folks outside the home happen via the aforementioned interactive pod. Carol even meets a friend, Rebecca (Sofia Boutella, Argylle), at a bar that way. It’s simply dangerous and inconvenient to go out. Under those circumstances, I think anyone would go a little stir crazy. A suicide jumper sprawled on the street confirms this.

Rebecca suggests that Carol try “DreamQuil,” a mysterious service we see advertised in a prologue, whose inventor, Margo Case (Kathryn Newton, Lisa Frankenstein), oozes unctuous charm while uttering vapid platitudes. But Rebecca says it worked for her and that she and her hubby are now more in love (and lust) than ever. So Carol decides to give it a go.

What happens next is a little opaque, whether by design or narrative misstep is unclear. But the procedure Carol undergoes—overseen by an overtly creepy nurse played by Juliette Lewis (Dreamland)—has one major consequence, which is that, while she is away, the company delivers a robot to replace her at home, so that Gary and their son will have someone to do the household chores. It turns out that the robot—named Carol 2—is a lookalike doppelganger for our protagonist. And possibly malevolent.

This plot development opens up a vast treasure trove of possibilities, most of them squandered through misdirection and sleight of hand that distract from anything resembling a coherent theme. After a while, we’re never sure what is real and what isn’t, and while it can be fun to play that guessing game, such riddles only work when the final reveal lands with impact. Here it’s just a muddle.

Christopher Llewellyn Reed

Chris Reed is the editor of Film Festival Today. A member of both the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA), and a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic, Chris is, in addition, lead film critic at Hammer to Nail and the author of Film Editing: Theory and Practice.