At 40, Sarah (Maeve Dermody) is forced to confront a painful truth: she’s trapped in a marriage held together by the faded illusions of love. Dermody stars in a quietly devastating and luminous performance, alongside Alexander England (Alien: Covenant, How to Please a Woman) and introduces young actor Sonny McGee.
In support of one of the key themes of the film, a donation of $1.00 from every ticket sold across the Palace Cinemas circuit during the release of the film will be made to The Man Cave, Australia’s leading preventative mental health charity for boys and young men that run workshops to help them build healthier relationships with themselves and those around them.
LIFE COULD BE A DREAM marks a powerful debut in narrative feature filmmaking for director Jasmin Tarasin, an Australian director and award-winning filmmaker whose work blends emotional depth, striking visual storytelling, and a commitment to amplifying women’s voices. The screenplay is written by acclaimed author Courtney Collins (The Burial, Bird).
As the film prepares to release in Australian cinemas on May 14, Nick L’Barrow spoke with the Jasmin Tarasin about the power of storytelling, and the importance of investigating the film’s heavy subject matter through the lens of a mother and son’s relationship.
Nick: This is a powerful, resonating film. I once spoke to a filmmaker who said something that has stuck with me about storytelling, and that is the idea that the more specific you are with your story, the more universal it will feel. Was that something you felt to be true with this film?
Jasmin Tarasin: Yeah, absolutely. I feel we committed to telling one woman’s story. It’s not every person’s story. However, some of the themes and things that she experienced can relate to a lot of different people, in different circumstances. We were very aware that this was a particular gaze. A very particular lens of this life. Sarah and Otis are very educated, privileged, a kind of perfect life looking family. And that was conscious because this movie is about the fact that it can happen to anyone. This was also kind of about the stories that we tell each other and, mostly, ourselves. Pride & Prejudice, all of the Disney stories. And that’s because no matter what upbringing we had, we’ve all got a story that runs through our veins. This movie is about showing that agency and resilience to break that story that feels near impossible too. It’s also a very intimate story between a mother and son. Before this, I was making a documentary series about mums and sons during that turning of age, you know, from a boy to a man. And it’s ingrained in that very particular relationship. I find it fascinating.
Nick: I would love to expand on that relationship and the character of Otis. There were elements of Otis’ story that I obviously connected to, and, like you, found his development throughout the story fascinating. Can you talk to the importance of exploring this story through the lens of Otis too?
JT: I think creating a psychologically safe environment for our children and our youth is everything, right? Because that’s the only way we’re going to prevent these types of behaviours moving forward into the next generation. In the film, Sarah makes a call on stopping these behaviours and putting a line in the sand, saying, “This is not okay.” It was about protecting our futures. You know, there’s a lot of talk about relationships, and being a victim of certain kinds of emotional patterns, but our children are our future. So, if we really want to change, we need to look at that relationship. It’s also a part of the reason, with the cinema release of the film, that we’re partnering with Man Cave. A contribution of each ticket at the cinema goes to Man Cave, and they’re this amazing group of people that are going into schools and teaching emotional intelligence, which is everything, right? So, I felt that developing the character of Otis and showing those patterns was an important part of the story.
Nick: Earlier you mentioned how we can use stories as escapism, and in this film, Sarah uses Jane Austin as that sort of escape, and the film visualises that incredibly well. What was the process of intertwining those “dream-like” moments into the narrative?
JT: You may have noticed that we definitely showed those moments like a fractured fairy tale. A lot of the scenes and visualisation is about how we tell those stories. The fairy tale looks comes from this idea that we want to create a perfect world, but it’s also internalised and not real. We use it for regulation. We’ve been raised on different films and books that tell stories, and I wanted to show the agency to break them. And we really showed that through the incredible sound design which was created by the team at The Post Lounge. They’ve worked on films like Harry Potter and Children of Men. And they just went to town on this sound design that was both the underbelly and the heartbeat of the entire film. I wanted people to really feel and experience what Sarah was feeling in their bodies. It’s particularly great in a cinema. When I first watched in a cinema, I could just feel this tension in my body, and then I was just catching up with the story as it went along.
Nick: I can only imagine that when you make a film about this subject matter, and you’re going out doing Q+A sessions where people will have visceral, powerful reactions. How do you prepare yourself to take on that emotional energy from those people who are touched by your film?
JT: Like, we’ve definitely talked about it. We’ve had media training around this. But, we also have these incredible partners in this space. And we’ve created resource kits and connections to different resources. A really fantastic campaign we’ve been working on with The Centre for Women’s Economic Safety, Next Chapter, Good Shepard, and many more. We’re talking about agency, resilience, and having all of these things in place for everybody is important. I think we are well resourced and we’re making sure we’re holding space for everybody. We’re very, very, very conscious of the film and story that we’re putting out into the world.
Thank you so much to Jasmin for her time, and to Maslow Entertainment and NixCo PR for organising the interview. Life Could Be A Dream is in cinemas nationally on May 14, with a donation of $1.00 from every ticket sold across the Palace Cinemas circuit during the release of the film will be made to The Man Cave.
