Lathe of Heaven Movie Review

In a near-future world, young George Orr visits a psychologist complaining that his dreams can alter and mold the real world. The ambitious shrink tries hypnosis to use the awesome superpower on a grand scale and cure mankind's many ills. Unfortunately, Orr's dreams have disastrous consequences – a demand for peace between all nations is realized via alien invasion – and much-redreamt reality, not to mention the plot, starts to fall apart. Promoted as the first made-for-TV movie done by Public Television, this adaptation of Ursula K. LeGuin's novel gets points for striving to be a highly cerebral affair (in an era when the commercial networks, not to mention major studios, mainly brainstormed over how to best rip off Star Wars). Suffers from an opaque finale, not helped by a PBS-level budget, but maintains a strong cult of admirers even though the videocassette release is notoriously difficult to find.

1980 120m/C Bruce Davison, Kevin Conway, Margaret Avery; D: David Loxton. VHS, Beta WNE