"The Good Night" is a film about reality versus fantasy. It stars Martin Freeman, Simon Pegg, Gwyneth Paltrow, Penelope Cruz and Danny DeVito. It was written and directed by Jake Paltrow, Gwyneth's brother. It is his first writing credit, but he has done one other feature film and several television episodes as a director.

The story follows Freeman's character, Gary, starting seven years after his band broke up as he is reduced to writing bad jingles for commercials. Dora (Paltrow) is his girlfriend of many years, but their relationship is strained, to say the least. His friends are passing him by at work and his life is quickly becoming a living nightmare.

This is when his dreams start to become really interesting. All of his dreams star Anna (Cruz) who is his ultimate fantasy woman -- the polar opposite of Dora. This is when he decides to learn more about the dreaming process, to have more nighttime rendezvous with Anna, and seeks out a group that focuses on how to do lucid dreaming. This group is led by DeVito's character, Mel, and he is eccentric in his character and dreaming techniques, to say the least.

As the film progresses, Gary struggles with finding control over his life and decides the best way to do that is to fully immerse himself into lucid dreaming, regardless of how this affects his reality. The film's mid-point twist comes when he finds that his dream girl, Anna, is actually a real life model and meets her through his best friend.

Paltrow's performance will really make you hate her from the moment you meet her on the screen. She is pushy, selfish and all together unlikeable. She even ends each day in bed with Gary with a seemingly fake and forced "love you." What is remarkable is that in trying to find any reason why Gary and Dora should be together at this point in their relationship I found myself wondering how they ever got together in the first place.

Throughout the film there are splices of a documentary inserted into the main story with interviews of Gary's friends. It is not clear until the end what exactly they are being interviewed about, but it adds a layer of intrigue to the story for sure. I liked the idea of this film within the film.

The look of the "The Good Night" was fantastic. The dream world that Gary lives in is full of warmth and color. If it was a real place you would want to visit for sure. The real world, by contrast, has much more brown and grey, and overall is much grittier. The cinematographer did a great job at visually separating the two worlds.

The DVD holds just one special feature -- a full-length commentary track by writer/director Jake Paltrow. While it is something I have an interest in watching, I have yet to do so. I was a bit disappointed that there were no behind the scenes types of features. I would have loved to watch some cast interviews to get their thoughts on the film as well as lucid dreaming as a whole.

Just when I thought I had the ending figured out, there was a fantastic twist that shocked me. Will Gary choose real life or the fantasy? You'll just have to rent "The Good Night" to find out. You can find the DVD at your local store in their new releases section.

I would like to end my column this week with a heartfelt thank you to the staff at Hollywood Video, the store I go to for my rentals each week. They are always personable and have great movie advice for me with this column in mind. This is why I encourage my readers to get to know their local store's staff as well -- you never know what great movie friendships and recommendations may come from it.

Please send your questions, comments, and DVD recommendations to Kelsey at pop@normantranscript.com.