Vague Visages’ Somnium review contains minor spoilers. Racheal Cain’s 2024 movie on Amazon features Chloë Levine, Will Peltz and Peter Vack. Check out the VV home page for more film criticism, movie reviews and film essays.

Racheal Cain’s Somnium borrows cinematic concepts from the past and doesn’t have much to say. Set in Los Angeles, the 92-minute thriller tells the familiar tale of a southern girl who pursues an acting career in Hollywood, only to get side-tracked by a more lucrative offer. Any cinephile, or anyone who pays close attention to science fiction films of the past 25 years, will immediately recognize all of Cain’s visual and conceptual influences: David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (2001), Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) and Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin (2013). So, character development becomes crucial when assessing the overall effectiveness of Somnium. Unfortunately, Cain’s screenplay is paper-thin.

Somnium’s lead actress, Chloë Levine, made a name for herself via appearances in Netflix’s The OA (2016-19) and Trinkets (2019-20), along with a headlining role in Keith Bearden’s 2020 romantic comedy Antarctica. She’s a wonderful performer who could easily play the sibling of a more well-known starlet like Odessa Young (check out the 2025 Netflix miniseries Black Rabbit). Levine headlines Somnium as Gemma, an aspiring actress from southern Georgia who unsuccessfully auditions for a role and then agrees to observe patients at a six-week accelerated dream program. She learns the specifics from a creepy colleague (Peter Vack as Hunter), and receives professional support from an even more bizarre industry person (Johnathon Schaech as a producer named Brooks). Just as Somnium’s dream subjects lose touch with reality, à la Christopher Nolan’s Inception (2010), Gemma’s life unsurprisingly spirals out of control as she becomes a dream patient and tries to process haunting memories from her Georgia past, specifically experiences with an ex-boyfriend (Will Peltz as Noah). Somnium relies heavily on Lynchian vibes to make up for its lack of narrative clarity.

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It’s difficult to grasp any of the character motivations in Somnium beyond the protagonist. Flashback scenes involving Peltz (who is perhaps best known as Adam from Levan Gabriadze’s 2014 horror film Unfriended) reveal little about Gemma, at least beyond the fact that her ex-boyfriend represents personal anxieties in the present timeline. And Schaech’s Brooks just seems like a David Lynch character who will inevitably manipulate and betray the protagonist. There’s also a dream creature that bookends Cain’s film; however, the writer-director chooses to recreate a scene from the aforementioned Under the Skin, and thus diminishes the overall effectiveness of Somnium. So, Levine must carry the movie on her own.

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Somnium is rather predictable, as first-time feature filmmakers like Cain tend to prioritize visual design over the nuts and bolts of their script. There’s a solid lead actress in place and a familiar name (Peltz) to lure casual moviegoers, but the movie seems like a cinematic imitation rather than an artistic statement. Personally, I would’ve liked the writer-director to expand on timely topics like DMT (dimethyltryptamine) and AI (artificial intelligence), mainly because a minimal exploration would’ve benefitted the dreamscape imagery via cinematographer Lance Kuhns (Saturday Night Live). For a more thrilling dream-themed movie experience, check out Anthony Scott Burns’ 2020 film Come True.

Somnium released digitally on September 9, 2025.

Q.V. Hough (@QVHough) is Vague Visages’ founding editor. Thank you for reading film criticism, movie reviews and film essays at Vague Visages.

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