Black Mirror: Bandersnatch

I have not written nearly enough about Black Mirror as I think I originally intended earlier this year. I had a short period where I was savoring every episode of Black Mirror I could because it was so good. And then just like that, I kind of forgot about Black Mirror until Bandersnatch came out. And I'll make mention that I barely heard about this movie until the day before it came out. That's how strong the Black Mirror brand is for me, I can be out of that mode for quite a while and then just like that, I can get back into it no problem.

But what's different this time around is that the entire movie is an interactive choose your own adventure. I've seen movies or games like this before but they are very, VERY hard to do. Choose your own adventure books are really hard to read for me because you wonder if you made the right choice and with the different storylines, I can lose track of the story.

So I'll be honest, when this movie started and I figured out it was fully interactive, like there wasn't an option not to have the interaction, I was not wild about it. However, I pushed through because I was hoping to be surprised.

Bandersnatch follows the story of a young video game programmer in the 80's by the name of Stefan (played by Fionn Whitehead). He is developing a new choose your own adventure game called Bandersnatch. The game is heavily based on a novel by an author who went crazy and killed his family. Stefan has a deadline to make the game and the process sends him down a rabbit hole of questioning his reality.

Along the way he has a relationship with his father (played by Craig Parkinson) that is troubled, he meets another programmer who knows more than he lets on (played by Will Poulter), and his therapist (played by Alice Lowe) is trying to help him along the way.

It's kind of hard to delve too much into the story without giving it away and because this is such an interactive experience, I think there is a lot that can be spoiled.

So the biggest thing I would say about this film is that it does handle the choose your own adventure probably as best as it can. Like I said, choose your own adventures can be difficult to create and be digestable for an audience. I do think this movie does two things to keep it more diagetic. The first is that the movie eases you into the whole making decisions thing. There are choices that will make a difference and there are choices that won't. Even the ones that do make a difference make the "wrong" decision almost a part of the story itself.  Again, I don't want to spoil anything, but there are choices that I think the movie wants you to make for the sake of the story. Certain choices change the information that is provided to the characters as well as information given to the audience. I know there are multiple endings as you would expect from this kind of medium, there are also parts of the story that can't be "unlocked" as it were unless you make the "wrong" decision. It's hard to really explain but in practice it works really well.

On top of all of that, there are certain choices that will take you back quite a ways in the story but it does give a brief overview to catch you right back up to where you were. This makes it a little bit easier to make whatever decision you want and not worry too much about larger consequences because you can come back to a certain point.

On top of that, the film gives the very similar clausterphobic, uneasy but mind bending feeling that you've probably come to expect from Black Mirror at this point. There are great ideas in this film and it's really cerebral. I think that's also a part where the choose your own adventure format works. It makes you feel apart of the story and adds another level to the narrative.

That being said, I do feel like some of the way they use that does come back and lessen the impact of the entire film. I'm thinking of one choice you make that veers off into a particularly self aware section. It was entertaining and like a lot of Black Mirror, there is some humor to be had with these stories. But I do feel like certain choices might take you out of the larger story experience that I would expect from these episodes of Black Mirror. Yes, they are very aware which parts will do that and you get that recap of what led up to you making the next decision, but I do think I would have preferred to have a couple of versions of this story so I can see every outcome without having to go back and make all those decisions again.

I would like to see a complete narrative with all the certain choices that lead to one outcome and all the certain choices that lead to another. I feel like that way I can get the more emotion driven experience from each outcome and not have the funnier ending disrupt the impact of the more serious endings.

I have to applaud Netflix for taking on a new medium like this. It makes sense, Netflix has the money to just run with crazy ideas like this and give it the time and effort to make it something that brings people in. I think the performances are good, the ideas are interesting, and the use of interactive storytelling is done well. I just wish I didn't have to start the whole movie over if I wanted to see a certain ending or weird side plot.

The same thing happens in video games with choice factors included. That's usually where I will go to Youtube to see the alternate endings when I can't just reload a game where I left off, but that just seems a little more difficult in this movie.

I think this might be a movie I will revisit pretty soon to do some more exploring, but as it is, I think it's a risky move that somewhat pays off. I enjoyed experience and I could be up for a few other future Netflix projects like it. I don't want this to become a huge thing, but I think it's well done how it is.

Have you seen/played Bandersnatch yet? What did you think? Have you seen all the endings? Which one did you prefer? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!