Dream Lover

Kazan is particularly good at balancing the incongruously sunny surface of the Reardons' privileged lives and the growing sense of darkness seeping out from every unsealed corner of what is apparently a picture-book existence.

The whole film has the intensity of a dream, and Mr. Kazan selects his fantasy elements with great care.

As for Madchen Amick, a stunning beauty with an edgy intelligence, Kazan has given her a role that grows more interesting as it deepens.

Dream Lover ends with a devious last-minute twist that will delight some and infuriate others into cries of "Is that all there is?" But the surprise ending fits the rest of Dream Lover perfectly, a movie that wholeheartedly embraces its genre's cliches -- yet still keeps you riveted. [20 May 1994, p.5]

Kazan does have his father's fierce erotic curiosity, that sense that once you unravel a story's real lusts and greeds, you've solved it.

An overly abstract mystery about the difficulty of really knowing another person, "Dream Lover" is too rarefied for a popular thriller and too hokey for an art film. Directorial debut of notable screenwriter Nicholas Kazan displays more of an awareness of film's visual possibilities than a flair for them, and while there are any number of interesting ideas bouncing around here, pic falls between stools both artistically and commercially.

Dull thriller which isn't very thrilling.