Mark Reviews Movies: DANIEL ISN'T REAL

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Review by Mark Dujsik | December 5, 2019

At the start, Daniel Isn't Real establishes a tantalizingly allegorical representation of psychological trauma. A young boy, escaping a fight between his parents, goes for a walk. He comes across the aftermath of a mass shooting, staring into the dead eyes of the shooter. At that moment, another young boy appears. Soon, we learn that this friend is imaginary. He has some twisted ideas of "fun."

We all have some darkness within us, and this movie, written by director Adam Egypt Mortimer and Brian DeLeeuw (based on the latter's novel), suggests that it is a source of temptation and, for some, a potentially unavoidable element of one's psyche. By the end, though, it has mostly thrown away all of those ideas for something entirely different.

Years after locking up his imaginary friend in a dollhouse, Luke (Miles Robbins) is a college student, planning to go to law school but dreaming of becoming a photographer. While at home, caring for his mentally ill mother Claire (Mary Stuart Masterson), Luke releases Daniel (Patrick Schwarzenegger), who wants Luke to be more like him—more fun, freer, less repressed, with lower inhibitions.

Things start going well. Luke takes up photography. He starts flirting with women, such as artist Cassie (Sasha Lane) and psychology student Sophie (Hannah Marks).

Daniel isn't content to be in the background of Luke's mind. He moves from offering advice to actually taking over Luke's body.

The movie spends a lot of time suggesting that Daniel is part of Luke, either as an awakened part of his psyche or a telltale sign that he might have developed mental health issues, specifically a kind of schizophrenia. For a while, the mystery of this is so secondary to the story's point that it hardly matters. What does matter, instead, is how Luke changes under the influence of seemingly freeing impulses, which might be more sinister underneath.

It's a fascinating back-and-forth between freedom and darkness, the knowledge that something is wrong and the fear of what fixing it might do, and a troubled young man and a part of psyche that is so powerful that it might as well be real. The third act of Daniel Isn't Real, though, searches for an answer to the mystery of Daniel, and in unlocking it, the movie loses itself in something far more literal and supernatural—and much less fascinating.

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