In Daniela Forever, a couple in the honeymoon phase of their relationship is torn apart by circumstances beyond their control. The surviving partner finds that bereavement is too overwhelming; he’d rather skip it altogether.
Daniela Forever
Nacho Vigalondo (director and writer), Jon D. Domínguez (cinematography), Carolina Martínez Urbina (editor)
Henry Golding, Beatrice Grannò, Aura Garrido, Nathalie Poza (cast)
September 6, 2024 (TIFF)
Nick (Henry Golding), a DJ who’s moved to Madrid from the UK, falls head over heels in love with Daniela (Beatrice Grannò), an Italian artist hoping to make a name for herself in the city. The relationship is perfect, until it’s gone all too soon in Daniela Forever. Nick finds he can’t handle the grief, nor can he accept that he’s deeply depressed. When his friend Victoria (Nathalie Poza) introduces him to a medication designed to help people overcome depression through lucid dreaming, Nick takes it without hesitation. But here’s the tricky thing about grief. It’s awful and painful and unfair. And ignoring it will only make it worse. Nick uses his dreams to experience life with a dream version of Daniela, not realizing he’s only delaying this very human emotion, not defeating it.
I watched Daniela Forever at a press screening at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). Having never seen Nacho Vigalondo’s work, I wasn’t sure what to expect. However, I have been waiting to see Henry Golding in a challenging role, so I had to watch this film.
Initially, I was annoyed by the dead girlfriend trope popping up so quickly in the film. I felt like we barely got to know Daniela before she was gone. But unlike so many films that use the dead girlfriend or dead wife as nothing but a prop for a male protagonist’s arc, Dream-Daniela gets her own character arc and motivations, even when Nick tries to control the narrative. She’s much more than a (literal) manic pixie dream girl, to my immense relief — Dream-Daniela has an inner life and desires beyond Nick.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the biggest romance film fan. Daniela Forever would need to do much more than establish a strong relationship to keep my attention. I’m happy to report the film did that and more. The surrealism of this film kept me hooked. Fairly early on in the film, there’s a scene where the lighting on the characters looks completely off. I wondered if this was a terrible mistake during production, but when the lighting was questioned by the characters, I knew I was in for a wild and unexpected ride. The surreal visuals are ably helped by a great soundtrack and score, both of which are heavily techno-influenced. I don’t usually find films with techno scores so this was a special treat. I hope to listen to the score once the film gets a wide release.
The TIFF website compares this film to Inception and Solaris, and it’s undeniable that Daniela Forever leans on the concepts of those films without being derivative. It’s about lucid dreaming, after all, which is a core concept of Inception. This film isn’t as polished or action-heavy as Inception, but it’s not trying to be. With a smaller budget, Daniela Forever aims to tell a grounded story about one individual’s grief.
I love that the film keeps things deceptively simple, mostly showing the changing dream world through props and lighting, while the dream world and Nick’s real world are differentiated primarily through aspect ratios and lighting. There are CGI moments present, and they’re fun visuals to encounter, but this film isn’t interested in spectacle. The CGI looked a bit janky at times, but honestly, this movie doesn’t have the budget to make it perfect. The aim was to get the human emotions across, and the film did that effectively.
Much of the emotion of Daniela Forever comes from Golding who looks like he’s having the time of his life in this film. Not when he’s playing the grieving Nick, of course, but when Nick is dreaming, Golding gets to do a lot of fun stuff like playing a vampire with a chainsaw. But when Nick is beyond despair, Golding doesn’t hold back in portraying the horrors of grief–the inability to get the words out because it’s too painful and the ugly crying that nobody wants to see but Nick can no longer stop himself from expressing. I like the range Golding portrayed in this film, and I’m glad he got the opportunity to do so.
Beatrice Grannò gets to have a different kind of fun as Daniela. Because the real Daniela dies early on in the film, for the majority of Daniela Forever, it’s only Dream-Daniela the audience gets to see. Since Nick isn’t used to lucid dreaming, Daniela starts off as robotic and monosyllabic. As Nick becomes more accustomed to the dream world, Daniela’s personality slowly begins to fill in, and she becomes a fully-fledged individual. Grannò looks like she’s having a ball playing these different evolutionary stages of Daniela — which is a funny thing to say about a film that’s ostensibly about grief.
This does bring me to my main grouse with Daniela Forever–the lead actors don’t have chemistry. I don’t understand how romantic comedies and dramas can cast actors who have no chemistry. It’s literally a defining characteristic of the genre! Despite Golding and Grannò’s efforts, Nick and Daniela don’t feel like they should be a couple. In fact, they both had a ton more chemistry with another character with an important role in the film. Additionally, I felt that the ending was 15-20 minutes too long. It could have wrapped up sooner. But even those moments added to the experience of this film. Most importantly, underneath the humour and the emotion was a strong message: it’s easy to escape the reality of grief, but no matter what one does, grief has no fast-forward button.
Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by Daniela Forever. The story was precise, the rules of the world were clear, and when they were muddied, there were obvious reasons for it. The individual stakes for the characters were high. There were plenty of heart-felt moments and a fair few laugh-out-loud ones, too. I felt swept along for the journey. Quite a strong start to my TIFF 2024.
