Strawberry Mansion
Dir Albert Birney and Kentucker Audley, US 2021
In cinemas and on demand
There’s so much going on in Strawberry Mansion that it’s difficult to know where to start. Well, one good place to start is with a grand idea – one that Philip K Dick would have loved. In the near future, our dreams are taxed, at a rate depending on what things feature in your dream. The hero, James Preble (played by co-director/co-writer Kentucker Audley – not his real name), is an auditor who assesses the recorded dreams of people who have got behind in their payments. He is sent to the home of Arabella ‘Bella’ Isadora (Penny Fuller), a delightfully eccentric old lady who is so far behind that she has thousands ofVHS tapes of her dreams for Preble to look through. In the first, he notes a charge of 52¢ for a hot air balloon, 25¢ for a buffalo and 0.03¢ for a dandelion. However, Preble also notices a beautiful young woman who, it turns out, is a younger incarnation of Bella (Grace Glowcki) who appears to be able to communicate with him.
