Review: A group of queer friends hits the road in search of solidarity in 'Dreams in Nightmares'

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Set us as preferred A special type of indie film teaches you how to see it as you watch it — not as an instructor might a student, but as an ally would a new acquaintance.Shatara Michelle Ford’s sophomore feature, “Dreams in Nightmares,” about a road trip, a friendship and a Black queer landscape anchored by care, has that quietly confident appeal, like being invited into something intimate, then let free when your curiosity is at its zenith.Ford made their name with the micro-indie, micro-focused “Test Pattern,” an act of upending as it dissected an interracial relationship’s fault lines in a moment of crisis.

(It’s on the Criterion Channel now.) This time, with the drive of a born iconoclast, Ford sheds plot even further — save the loose construct of three besties in search of their absent fourth.What emerges, as the plot spans a North America whose inviting (or alienating) textures are attentively captured by cinematographer Ludovica Isidori, is an ode to the centering of chosen family when the realities of life, especially for people of color, always seem to demand soul-crushing acquiescence.For creative writing professor Z (Denée Benton), recently let go from her Los Angeles-based university and uncertain about her future, a recurring dream featuring black-and-white imagery, a door and an enticing expanse of nature puts her in a journeying state of mind.

Hopping to Brooklyn to connect with Tasha (Sasha Compère), a nervy consultant also recently shorn from her job, and Lauren (Dezi Bing), an emerging poet, this close-knit trio first decides to go dancing, then to seek out their celebrated artist pal Kel (Mars Storm Rucker), last heard from in the Midwest and who’s cut off all communication.Movies We’ve mapped out 27 of the best movie theaters in L.A., from the TCL Chinese and the New Beverly to th...