Flashback (2021)

Some viewers may need a second screening or more to work out what the hell is actually going on, especially with the EDM playing in the background in some scenes. Nevertheless, this pulpy multiverse brain-teaser is reasonably compelling to watch – at least in this reality. In another, it’s straight to video garbage, and in yet another, it’s won the Palme d’Or.

The endpoint of Flashback feels entirely arbitrary, though, and the narrative is so repetitive and circuitous that the movie could have ended at any point in its last half-hour or so without making any difference. MacBride delivers the finale with the fanfare of a magician unveiling his greatest trick, but it lands with an anticlimactic thud. The movie's original title was The Education of Fredrick Fitzell, but by the end, neither Fred nor the audience seems to have learned anything.

Flashback loses steam about two-thirds of the way through. The visual tricks become blasé once the mystery is revealed. The ending makes sense, but I had honestly lost interest in the existential gibberish by then.