What Dreams May Come

"After life there is more. The end is just the beginning."

*"Sometimes when you lose, you win."*

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The story.* What Dreams May Come* starts out with a devasting loss for Chris and Annie Nielsen: their two children, both teenagers, die in a car crash. Things get worse for Annie when Chris is also killed a few years later.

The story then takes us to the other side, where Chris is taught how he creates his own afterlife reality. When Annie commits suicide, he sets out on a journey to rescue her from her state of denial, something that has not been done before…

The intensity of emotion in this movie is unparallelled. From the deepest despair for the loss of all your loved ones to the tremendous joy of being reunited with them, everything is here. The sadness is necessary, however, to bring all family members to ‘the other side.’

The depiction of life after death is stunning. When Chris passes on, we are witness to his trials and tribulations, as he comes to terms with his new situation. He learns to play. He learns to recognize the interplay between the world of the living and his world. He learns about the dreams and yearnings of his children that he never suspected when he was ‘alive.’

The story is a tribute to the power of love. Nothing, not even death, can break apart two people who are meant to be together. The theme that anything is possible if only you believe in it enough also runs through the story. The seed is the idea that we create our own realities. Why then, Chris rightly asks, would bringing Annie back be impossible?

This is both the saddest and the happiest movie I have seen. The tears are well worth it, however. All is well that ends well. Or was that just a new beginning?

Note: Richard Matheson, who wrote the novel this film is based on, also wrote Somewhere in time.

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