Dragonfly is directed by Tom Shadyac who also co-writes the screenplay with Brandon Camp and Mike Thompson. It stars Kevin Costner, Kathy Bates, Ron Rifkin, Joe Morton and Linda Hunt. Music is scored by John Debney and cinematography by Dean Semler. Plot finds Costner as a grieving doctor who starts to believe he is being contacted by his late wife through patients near death experiences.
"She was my ultimate partner, my best friend and lover. And I miss her beyond belief. I also know I'm never gonna see her again, not ever. And I'm just beginning to understand what that means so intensely that I sometimes wish I didn't have to wake up anymore. And the last thing I need is someone telling me what to feel, or how to feel."
It was badly marketed as a supernatural horror during the publicity prior to its theatrical release, and even now certain DVD covers lend the unsuspecting to thinking it's a nerve jangling experience. That it failed to resonate with critics and many film fans is not surprising, they either didn't get the spook fest they expected, or they simply had no time for a picture high on sentiment. And, without doubt, there are those who simply dislike Costner to the point that even when his peers were lauding him, they were throwing the poisonous darts. Does this mean they are all wrong and Dragonfly is a great picture? No, not at all, it has problems for sure, but really it could only ever appeal to one corner of the film loving market.
Dragonfly is a meditation on grief, where structured as it is, it opens the possibility of something past death offering advice and hope. This of course brings in much sentimentality as the makers hit the viewer with a sledgehammer, reference gravely ill children, young suicides and Costner's grieving. But what's wrong with sentimentality anyway? True, they go too far in the final quarter here where an underwater sequence is as trite as it gets, but some folk want to be manipulated into a teary eyed state, or they want to believe as Fox Mulder does. It's also worth mentioning that this isn't loaded as statement to say "there is" something after death, that the white light thing waits for us all, because it is disputed during a dinner conversation that puts up a valid argument against the near death experience.
Always interesting in themes and played deftly by Costner (who always does great brooding and inner turmoil) and Bates, this is a film worthy of inspection by seekers of the heart tug. Suffice to say, the horror faithful and those that hate the treacle treatment should stay away. 7/10
