Mark Reviews Movies: FLASHBACK (2021)

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Review by Mark Dujsik | June 3, 2021

The story of Flashback could be heading in an assortment of directions, and one might start to suspect that one of those possibilities is an inevitability. There isn't one specific possibility, mind you, because writer/director Christopher MacBride introduces so many potential paths—from the lingering effects of a mind-altering drug, to time travel, and even to aliens—that it's almost impossible to latch on to one option. This also means, of course, that it's almost impossible to latch on to any purpose or meaning within this story or for these characters as that story progresses.

MacBride has set out to play an elaborate mind game with the audience, and in terms of keeping us in the dark about the solution to this puzzle of memories and characters appearing to be capable of existing in two different periods of time, the filmmaker definitely succeeds. The cost, though, is far too high. We have no idea what results, consequences, or answers this story might bring, but we also don't comprehend why any of it is happening or why it matters to these characters.

The setup involves one Fredrick Fitzell (Dylan O'Brien), a young man stuck in a rut of routine and settling for the ordinary. He gave up a passion for drawing at some point and, apparently, in order to have a more financially stable career and life. He's married to Karen (Hannah Gross), whose existence in this story is essentially to serve as an obstacle for our protagonist, putting forward/representing a variety of pretty innocuous "difficulties." They say a lot more about Fredrick than they do her.

Karen wants him to hold a steady job. She wants to start a family with him, and she'd like him not to get lost in thought when they're being intimate together. Karen also wants her husband to spend some time with his mother (played by Liisa Repo-Martell), who has suffered a rather traumatic health issue that left her in a catatonic state. These are reasonable and ordinary requests or wishes, but Fredrick apparently would rather get lost in drawing or reminiscing about his past than actually live a life.

That's partially the point here, obviously, but it certainly doesn't make our protagonist a particularly sympathetic figure. It doesn't help that MacBride's entire plot scheme is manufactured to keep the character—who he is and what he has done—at a distance.

The plot itself has Fredrick going about his mundane life while becoming increasingly and more intensely involved in his memories. Specifically, those memories involve his high school days, when a mind-altering drug was going around the school. Fredrick kept himself clean, but the appeal of Cindy (Maika Monroe), a pretty girl in class, eventually led him to try the drug.

Things became complicated, eventually resulting in Cindy's disappearance before graduation. In the present, when Fredrick meets up with former classmates Sebastian (Emory Cohen)—the school bully who dealt the drug—and Andre (Keir Gilchrist), matters become even more confounding in the present, which starts to bleed into the past.

The screenplay seems to be founded on two ideas: mystery and cross-cutting. The mystery is almost impossible to describe—not because a description would give away too much information, but simply because MacBride offers so many possibilities for what's happening to Fredrick, within his mind, or as part of some grand conspiracy about the universe that we're never certain what's happening. We watch the past events unfold in sometimes non-linear, sometimes repeating, and sometimes changing order, and in the present, Fredrick attempts to re-create his past steps, in order to figure out what may have happened to Cindy.

As for the editing, it's occasionally impressive (MacBride and editor Matt Lyon merge actions and dialogue from the past and present with such precision that the effect is seamless) and intentionally, effectively jarring. Without a grounded story or engaging characters to latch on to, though, the whole enterprise quickly begins to feel like an exercise in technique. Once the notion of science-fiction (Someone speculates about the drug's origin, and it seems as if the concept of linear time is shattered) or fantasy (as in dreams made real, not magic) is introduced here, the story's possibilities expand, but its purpose becomes all the more cloudy.

Flashback does eventually—as in, right at the end—land upon a meaning, which has little to do with the winding plot or what seems to be the central mystery of that plot. It's basically about responsibility in the choices we make and who guides us along that path. At least, that's what it seems to be, because MacBride isn't the most reliable guide for this tale.

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