I knew then that our love was not some idealized state, but a union of secrets and flaws, and it broke my heart to think such things.
"I know you probably think I'm a manipulative bitch for sleeping with two guys, but try looking at it this way: the sexual revolution is just like any other revolution. There's gonna be casualties."
Daydream Nation is a 2010 teen drama film by Canadian director Michael Goldbach. It stars Kat Dennings, Josh Lucas, Reece Thompson and Andie MacDowell.
Caroline Wexler (Dennings) has transferred to a high school in a secluded town. Wanting some drama in her life, Caroline seduces her English teacher Barry Anderson (Lucas), while attracting the attention of classmate and stoner Thurston (Thompson).
Meanwhile, a serial killer in a white suit goes around preying on young women, two children go on adventures where they discuss existentialism and an industrial fire perpetually looms on the horizon.
Tropes
- Alas, Poor Villain: The serial killer is impaled on a wooden spike after getting caught in a car accident, but when Caroline and the audience by extension see him, he's just a pitiful old man rather than the monster he was built up to be.
- Betty and Veronica: In the first two cases, both Bettys and Veronicas have sex with their respective Archies.
- Barry is the Veronica and Thurston is the Betty to Caroline's Archie.
- Caroline herself is the Veronica to Jenny's Betty for Thurston's Archie.
- Caroline is also the Veronica to the gym teacher's Betty for Barry's Archie.
- Bittersweet Ending: After the car accident, Caroline and Barry end up in hospital, but survive and are hinted to be in healthier relationships with Thurston and the gym teacher respectively. The serial killer is also killed in the same accident, but his death isn't played with any sense of triumph and the industrial fires rage on.
- Color Motif:
- Caroline has a penchant for red clothes and lipstick. Appropriate considering she's a Femme Fatale.
- There's a yellow wash over just about every scene set in the mundane town where all the characters end up living, while out of town settings that feature crushed dreams and long-lost relationships have more striking colours.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: Barry tells Caroline that if she doesn't stop seeing Thurston, he'll either kill him or kill himself. Most therapists will tell you this is textbook emotional abuse.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Barry's manuscript hints that he's struggling to get over an unfaithful girlfriend. Confirmed when he starts calling his ex-girlfriend under a pseudonym, just like the protagonist in his story does out of loneliness.
- Disposable Sex Worker: Laura, the student who works nights as a stripper and is murdered by the man in white.
- Dissolve: Caroline's sex scenes with Barry and her later ones with Thurston are all edited this way.
- Femme Fatale: Caroline is fully aware of the effect she has on guys."My mom once told me that if you ever want to make a man happy... flatter his vanity. Tell him he's handsome. She said not to bother calling him interesting or clever, because that's what their bosses and colleagues are for. But every man carries a secret dream of being handsome, and desperately yearns to be recognized as such."
- Hollywood Mid-Life Crisis: Barry is suffering from one. After Caroline compliments his looks, he starts trying to look younger and more virile, even bleaching his hair.
- Hypocrite: Jenny slut-shames Caroline, yet she flirts with the same guys Caroline sleeps with.
- Light Is Not Good: Barry's Sanity Slippage kicks off with bleaching his hair.
- Madonna-Whore Complex: Discussed at one point. Caroline's classmate Jenny tries to slut-shame her, but Caroline throws it back in her face:"Okay, let's just say that I have banged forty guys. What's the problem? You're just jealous because you've been, ah, brainwashed by puritanical assholes who think sex is a sin. But then again, your, ah, little gerbil-sized brain has been reprogrammed by the media to believe that sex is the be-all, end-all. So now you're stuck, right? 'Cause on the one hand you love to fuck, but afterwards you feel overwhelmed by guilt & you're not sure why. Maybe it's because sex is neither as good or as evil as you've built it up to be."
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Barry writes his novel's love interest in such a way. When Caroline realizes the love interest is based on her, she takes offense that he sees her in such a shallow light.
- Ms. Fanservice: Caroline tends to wear tight shirts and short skirts with stockings with the intention of looking seductive and there's a lot of close-ups of her lovely feminine features bathed in a yellow glow.
- Parent with New Paramour: Thurston's mother charms Caroline's father to help her son get a chance with Caroline. It doesn't take long for her to genuinely take a liking to him.
- Rule of Symbolism: The final scene of the movie has a shot from behind of Caroline and Thurston holding hands and staring at the smoke on the horizon. As Caroline narrates that their situation depends on one's perspective (see the closing line below), the shot switches from their backs to their fronts, which shows an unspoiled sky with the sun low on the horizon.
- Satellite Love Interest: Caroline finds out from reading Anderson's manuscript that he sees her as some kind of Manic Pixie Dream Girl, which causes her to go off him.
- Serial Killer: A man in a white suit who had previously killed another teenage girl.
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Spiritual Successor: There's a clear Twin Peaks influence. A blonde schoolgirl with a shady double-life is found dead, Sanity Slippage is depicted with a character's hair losing its pigment and the element of fire has a sinister presence. Caroline's appearance and character arc is almost a beat-by-beat re-enactment of Audrey Horne's. - Stylistic Suck: Barry's novel runs on a series of cliches and rushes through most of its plot within the space of 70 pages.
- Teacher/Student Romance: The main plot revolves around Caroline and Barry having an inappropriate affair. Barry eventually gets too attached to Caroline and that's when things get ugly.
- Troubled, but Cute: Caroline reveals through narration that she was recently diagnosed as having low serotonin levels. After chewing out Jenny, she hides in a bathroom cubicle and cries her eyes out. Thurston also fits the trope, as he's dealing with his best friend dying in a car accident.
- Wham Line: "If you leave, I'll kill him!"
- "People will tell you nothing matters, the whole world's about to end soon anyway. Those people are looking at life the wrong way. I mean, things don't need to last forever to be perfect."
