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A Film of Choices: Black Mirror’s Bandersnatch Review

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“Black Mirror,” a Netflix original, is known for portraying the very realistic result of implementing technological advancements in society. In the past, I have rarely been disappointed in the “Black Mirror” series, as they all are impressing and compelling, shown in episodes such as “Black Museum” and “Hated in the Nation.”

Recently, Netflix has released their debut movie, “Bandersnatch,” which allows viewers to make certain choices to control the film. It begins with simple decisions, having the viewer choose the breakfast of the main character, Stefan, between Frosties or Sugar Puffs. It escalates very fast, as the film will end up having the viewer choose to whether to bury or chop up a dead body. I ended up enjoying the film a lot, although it was poorly executed. The new idea of having the viewers choose and control the film is an amazing concept but could have been implemented better. There were limited options and if one had chosen a wrong choice, it would restart the film and direct the viewer in the direction Netflix wanted the film to go.

The plot itself was decent, but rather boring, as it was simply about Stefan’s video game career until it started to dive deeper into his psychological issues, stemming from his mother’s death at a young age, which brought more life into the plot. Bandersnatch is classified as a psychological thriller, therefore many people have disliked the film as it is gory and dark.

Overall, I found the aspect of choosing the decisions within the film very interesting, as well as the psychological portions of the film, including the therapy and the story of Stefan’s childhood trauma. If “Black Mirror” continues this concept of having the viewer make choices for the film, I think it will be very successful if the plot of the film is interesting, rather than having all of the interest be in being able to choose options.

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