REVIEW: ‘Dream’ Is An Underdog Story That Overstays Its Welcome

When an altercation with a news reporter gets Yoon Hong Dae (Park Seo-joon) put on disciplinary probation, he soon finds himself coaching a team of misfit players in preparation for the upcoming Homeless World Cup (HWC). Now he faces the task of training these new players, while also trying to work with Lee So Min (Ji-eun Lee), who is directing a “documentary” about the team’s journey to the World Cup in Dream (2023), directed by Byeong-heon Lee written by Mohammed Abdullah and Byeong-heon Lee.

Like many stories in the vein of Dream (2023), it begins with its protagonist being less than thrilled with his new task. Pressured into the job by his agent to improve his image after jabbing a noisy reporter in the eyes, Yoon initially seeks to put as little effort into his coaching as he can get away with. His lack of enthusiasm is further agitated by Lee’s approach to directing her documentary.

Rather than record the events as they naturally happen, Lee frequently meddles with the team, providing lines for Yoon to say during critical moments and influences which ultimately makes the team based on whose backstories are the most sympathetic to audiences. This puts the two biggest characters in the movie in rather negative lights to start. Since both are effectively using the homeless people, they are supposed to be helping purely for their own gain.

While the pair continue to but heads for most of the movie, they do eventually come to grow more hospitable to each other. While they have a couple of solid moments on screen together, Park and Lee never really manage to gel completely. I wouldn’t call their chemistry outright bad, but they never manage to find that common ground that makes their time together, whether as antagonists or allies, truly shine.

The key characters that the viewer is most drawn to for most of the film’s roughly two-hour run-time are the players on the team. Each has a story that makes them sympathetic to the viewer, as well as shows various scenarios of how one can end up homeless without the often trotted-out negative stereotypes people frame homelessness through. My personal favorite is a player who is trying to reconnect with his daughter. The scenes where he gets to share simple moments with her, like having dinner or bringing her to a scrimmage to cheer left me with a true warmth in my heart.

While Dream (2023)  is dotted with these feel-good moments throughout its story, there is too much story to be had. Too many training montages make the early elements of the film drag on, and the matches when the team arrives at the HWC go on for far too long. There is a solid 20-30 minutes in this movie that could’ve been left on the cutting room floor, and it would’ve been better for it.

Another element that comes to add to Dream’s bloat is a side story involving Yoon’s mother, played by Baek Jo-won(Extraordinary Attorney Woo). While his situation with his mother provides the catalyst for his disciplinary probation, her continued presence in the movie brings little with it except to increase the movie’s run time.

The other major hurdle that the movie fails to overcome is how it delivers Yoon’s arc. While he ends up coming to truly care for his team, I never felt his transformation happening. Rather it feels like he is uninterested for the first three-quarters of the movie, and then he’s suddenly all about the team rather than just viewing them as something he can use. Once he reaches the end goal, Park does a convincing job of showing his character’s new compassion for his players while still exhibiting some of his more negative traits. This helps Yoon continue to feel like himself and not a magically perfect version of him.

Dream (2023) is, at its core, a feel-good movie that provides some genuine warmth. However, much of that warmth is buried under a bloated runtime and a main character whose personal arc is badly handled. While it’s not without its merits, there are better films in this mold you can watch.

Dream is streaming now, exclusively on Netflix.