At the height of the pandemic in 2020, the award-winning artist Alex Prager sent her sister, fellow artist Vanessa Prager, the “YearQuil” meme — a parodic spin on NyQuil which advertised the chance to sleep until the world returned to normal. Their ensuing conversation swerved around toward, “What if 2020 lasts forever?” The terrifying prospect provided the foundation for DreamQuil, Prager’s feature directorial debut (co-written with Vanessa), set in the not-so-distant future as dangerous environmental conditions force people to stay inside and lead predominantly virtual lives.
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“The effects of the pandemic and how that would transform into a film could be really fun and entertaining to watch,” Prager says of how she and Vanessa conceived the idea. “And we could also talk about a way to reclaim our humanity — by inviting us into our own collapse.”
And what a collapse she imagines. DreamQuil stars Elizabeth Banks as Carol, who senses her marriage falling apart amid claustrophobic domestic conditions. She’s sick of cooking and cleaning; her life feels utterly devoid of meaning. Out of desperation, Carol is lured into the digital wellness retreat called DreamQuil, run by a vague corporate entity promising a miraculous rejuvenation on the other side. This is because, unbeknownst to Carol, she’ll return home to find her husband (John C. Reilly) and young son being cared for by her robot doppelgänger, Carol Two (or Carol Too, depending on how you choose to hear it), a flawlessly cheery homemaker who may or may not present an existential threat to the real Carol’s future in the family.
Those familiar with Prager’s work will recognize hallmarks of her visual flourishes, from the matte-painting backdrops to the feeling that everything is taking place out of time. That’s precisely what led Banks, who met Prager for a 2013 short film that premiered at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, to initially back the project as a producer and help guide it through the script, financing, production, and editing phases.
“What I love about her aesthetic is that you really can’t pinpoint the [era] depending on hair, makeup, visual style…when people ask me, ‘Is this in the future? In the past?’ it’s sort of like, ‘It’s either!’” Banks says. “You don’t know where you are or when you are.”
Prager admits, “I’m a little far out when it comes to my thinking about life and the world and everything.” She had some decorated artisans help her bring her wild vision to life, including Oscar-winning cinematographer Lol Crawley (The Brutalist) and Black Mirror production designer Annie Beauchamp. They used Baltar lenses (used to iconic effect by, among others, Alfred Hitchcock) and similarly old-school Mole lights to bring about a warped midcentury feel. But the filmmaker also had very contemporary concerns on the mind.
“I was thinking a lot about the strange, absurd indifference of tech companies towards the lived human experience and human expression,” Prager says. “Feeling uncomfortable things is okay because that’s a sign that we’re alive, but most people these days want to numb themselves or go to sleep so they don’t have to experience something uncomfortable. I wanted to look into that: What are the consequences of deciding you’re not going to confront feeling something really uncomfortable?”
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Coming off of projects like Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance and Ryan Murphy’s The Beauty, DreamQuil adds to a trend of Hollywood projects following characters in relentless pursuit of better versions of themselves.
“Body horror as a genre is a response to living in the world where we’re making fake versions of ourselves now, all the time,” Banks says. “The notion of uploading ourselves into a better version is really enticing for people.” She sees DreamQuil speaking directly to the rapid integration of AI into everyday life, both in its allure and its danger. “I could be presenting to you as AI on this Zoom right now, and how would you know that it’s not me?” she says over, yes, Zoom. “We’re already filtering ourselves. My skin already looks better, I already look younger. It’s so wild that we’re not facing this real reality that’s coming down the pike, and that is really affecting our mental health in a deep way.”
The tension between Carol and Carol Two ratchets up as the latter caters to every whim of the men in the household with a wide smile and not a hint of resentment. “The robot version of myself has a better body and a bigger booty and better hair and shinier lips, and all of that made me walk a different way, stand a different way,” Banks says. “I wanted it to be super weird. How do I make it something that’s super awkward but believable? It was a fine line to walk the whole time we were filming.”
Prager saw Banks’s deft performance as speaking to another contemporary trend blurring past and modern life: “The trad wife has come back, and so there’s a little bit of, ‘Is this still relevant to women?’” But the thorniest questions posed between the two versions of Carol are rooted in the experiences of Prager, a mom herself, and her social circle: “There’s a line about Carol not wanting to be called ‘mom’ anymore, and that’s something that my friend’s mom actually said at Thanksgiving dinner one day. She stood up and announced that.”
Banks and Prager had spent years in conversation before filming started in Los Angeles. “[Banks] was never trying to tell me what to do in development — she was really trying to guide the story structure more and to make sure that especially her character knew what she wanted,” Prager says. Banks, meanwhile, appreciated where the director held firmest even as they assembled a modest budget and brought on more producers.
“She’s very specific about lighting and color schemes and all the things that an artist uses in their palette,” Banks says. “And she was really insistent that we build the apartment — which, she was right. It’s the only real way to have done it.”
The handcrafted, surreal nature of DreamQuil is what helps set it apart. You can feel every inch of detail. “I liked the idea of telling the story…through the way The Twilight Zone or a theater might,” Prager says. “It feels really artificial because it’s theater, but at the same time, there’s nothing more alive than the living and breathing people right in front of you. There’s also a playfulness in the theatricality, so we’re not taking ourselves too seriously.”
Tone took awhile for Prager to figure out, though. Nothing about making her first feature was easy, she admits, but nailing that balance was the toughest. All told, the film was shot nearly two years ago. “It was an elaborate edit — Alex, I think, was very much learning as she went,” Banks says. “And it was a long post process because of the doubling of me. It was really interesting how we put that together.”
As she first started digging into pre-production, Prager called up her friend, Oscar winner Daniel Kwan (Everything Everywhere All at Once), and asked how she should prepare for her first feature. “He was like, ‘You literally can’t — everything is going to be the hardest thing you’ve ever done in your life, and there’s no way to prepare for any of it,’” Prager recalls. “And he was totally right.” She says this with a warm smile, though. With DreamQuil finished at last, you sense Prager wouldn’t have it any other way.
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DreamQuil premieres Monday at SXSW
