Black Mirror is awesome, and choose-your-own-adventure books are awesome. Put them together, and you have Black Mirror: Bandersnatch : A truly confusing, and tedious watching experience that I pray I never have to sit through again.
Maybe it just wasn’t my cup of tea. I love Black Mirror and its erie take on technology, but this one didn’t exactly live up to the hype.
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Plus, it left me with about a million questions.
It starts off by giving simple instructions.
You have just a few seconds to decide on one of two options.
Seems simple enough, right? What could possibly go wrong?
1. You’re given your first choice just minutes in: Sugar Puffs or Frosties.
I assumed the movie was just giving us a chance to get a feel for things. I mean, how could the cereal you choose, change how the main character, Stefan’s, day unravels?
Next, Stefan is on the bus, and you’re faced with another choice that seems irrelevant.
Again, does his choice of music actually affect the rest of his day? Only time will tell.
This is where things get a bit confusing.
You’re asked to make a pretty major career decision for Stefan. But it becomes clear pretty quickly if you’ve made the wrong choice.
2. Stefan gets offered the job of his dreams, so your instinct may be to accept the offer.
But you’d be wrong.
If you accept the offer, you’re immediately taken back in time and forced to refuse the offer instead.
What’s the point of giving us options if they’re just going to choose for us, amirite?
3. After that, Stefan starts working on his video game at home.
His dad sees that he’s been working hard, and not getting enough sleep, so he confronts him. You’re then given the option to either shout at dad, or pour tea over the computer.
If you choose the tea option, it simply rewinds, suggesting you reconsider.
Is it really a “choose-your-own-adventure” if there is a right or wrong choice?
It’s a bit contradictory that if you choose one over the other, it might rewind and force you to choose the other option.
So, you see why this might be confusing.
4. Colin’s therapist prescribes him medication, and you have the option to take them or get rid of them.
I chose to flush them, to keep things interesting.
5. Next, Stefan meets with his video game mentor, Colin, and is offered a hallucinogen.
Obviously, out of interest, you’d be more inclined to select “yes”.
But then, once the drugs kick in, you have to decide if you or Colin should jump off the ledge of the building.
Logically, I chose Colin. Better him than me, right?
6. Colin’s wife walks into the room and sees that he’s committed suicide. But later in the film, she’s looking for him, claiming he’s been missing for days.
Okay, so she didn’t see him jump off the ledge? Was all of that apart of the hallucination? Is he actually dead?
Confused. So confused.
7. Colin sneaks into his dad’s office and finds a vault.
He manages to unlock the vault and finds files that suggest his entire life has been some kind of experiment, and that his childhood was all staged.
8. His reaction to this was rather extreme.
Colin realizes that he’s being controlled by an external force (us, the viewers). He breaks a crystal ashtray over his dad’s head, killing him.
Now we’re asked to decide how to dispose of the body.
So, was that even his real dad? Was his life an experiment? Did his mom really die in a train crash?
Meanwhile, I’m still trying to figure out whether or not the “PACS” files were real or not.
9. Colin knows he’s being controlled, he just doesn’t know how or by whom.
We have the choice to tell him it’s us, via Netflix, or the white bear logo.
10. If you choose Netflix, you’re suddenly taken back to the day Colin’s mom dies.
Okay, so she was his mom after all? I’m still unclear on this.
Anyway, Colin finds his bunny and his mom asks him to go with her to the train.
If you select “yes”, you die. If you select no, you live.
At this point in the journey, I was confused and exhausted. But I really wanted to know how it ended, so I kept going.
It says the movie is an hour and a half long, but that’s a huge lie. You’ll be at this for a solid three hours if you want to see all the endings.
11. After Colin kills his dad, he calls his therapists office, absolutely fuming because he thinks she’s in on the experiment too.
We still don’t know if Colin was actually being experimented on, or if he was just losing his mind.
Either way, he ends up in jail for killing his dad. But then, you’re taken back in time again , to Colin sitting down with his therapist.
12. This is where they really lost me.
Colin starts fighting his therapist, and his dad (even though we thought his dad was dead).
This scene simulates a vintage Bruce Lee movie. It’s very random and only added to my confusion.
13. Just when I thought I couldn’t be anymore confused, this happened.
Suddenly, we’re not in the ’80s anymore, and we’re looking at the creator of this movie, as she’s making the movie.
14. But then she pours her tea over her computer.
It was really starting to get ridiculous, I don’t even know why I kept participating.
15. If you choose the “chop up body” option after Colin kills his dad, you inevitably end up here.
The camera closes in on what Colin is scraping into the prison wall, and low and behold, it’s the white bear symbol.
What does this mean? I seriously do not know.
16. Fast forward to the present, Colin ends up being exactly like his idol.
Throughout the movie, he always admired the original author of Bandersnatch , who decapitated his wife. Except Colin is known for making a video game out of it, going insane, and murdering his father.
After three hours of this nonsense, here’s what I gather:
Making a “choose-your-own-adventure” novel, video game, or movie will ultimately drive you mad.
Is that the moral of the story? Did I just crack the code? Is that the takeaway?
17. Basically this movie didn’t make any sense.
Was Colin insane the entire time?
Was his dad a crazy scientist running experiments on him?
Did his mom die in a train accident?
Did Colin die?
Why did ” PACS ” keep getting brought up?
Did Pearl Ritman really pour tea on her computer while making this movie?
