Strawberry Mansion is a trippy love story that focuses a lot on the dream world, but does so in a new and unique way.
Just reading the synopsis of Strawberry Mansion had me intrigued to watch it. A future where the government taxes your dreams and has audits on them to make sure you are paying the right amount? Sounds interesting on paper. Knowing we were going to spend a lot of time in the dream works I was expecting things to be a little weird and off kilter, but honestly, Strawberry Mansion really impressed me a lot more than I expected it to.
The overall story is very interesting. An auditor, Preble, shows up at an old lady’s home to audit her dreams. Bella has over two thousand VHS tapes filled with her dreams that he needs to watch. Knowing this will take some time she offers to let him stay with her. After putting up a little bit of a fuss, he finally accepts.
Most of this movie is off the wall and bizarre, but in an “I can’t look away” way, and it really worked for me. Of course the dream world is strange, but the rest of the movie is too. Throughout the course of the film Preble starts to hear things that Bella cannot (or at least claims that she cannot). When Bella lets him in on a secret she has been keeping after he discovers something strange in one of her dreams, his world turns upside down.
I will not give away what that secret is, but it works so well because it feels like something that could genuinely happen. This movie is set in the very near future and it doesn’t feel like much of a stretch at all.
What we get next is a bit of a love story, a bit of suspense, and a whole lot of crazy. However, it all comes together in the end really completing the story. This is one of those movie that makes so much more sense once you get to the end. I was left with a big smile on my face when it was over.
The way that the dream world connects with the real world is so fantastic. As you get to the end of Strawberry Mansion it jumps back and forth which could easily be confusing if not done right. But it is done perfectly to help tie things up in a neat little bow.
Yes, there are a lot of weird elements to this film — people with wolf heads, talking flies, and maybe a bit too many spiders for my liking — but it really all works. This movie will stick with me for a long time, in a really good way.
About Strawberry Mansion
In the not-too-distant future, an all-seeing surveillance state conducts “dream audits” to collect taxes on the unconscious lives of the populace. Mild-mannered government agent James Preble (Kentucker Audley) travels to a remote farmhouse to audit the dreams of Arabella “Bella” Isadora (Penny Fuller), an eccentric, aging artist. Entering Bella’s vast VHS archive, which contains a lifetime of dreams, Preble stumbles upon a secret that offers him a chance at love – and hope for escape.
Tessa Smith is a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer-approved Film and TV Critic. On Camera personality and TV / Film Critic with 10+ years of experience in video editing, writing, editing, moderating, and hosting.