Shuffle (Kurt Kuenne) 2011 USA

Reviewed by Rosanna Lapinski. Viewed at the 27th Santa Barbara International Film Festival

Lovell Milo is a young man on a mysterious, harrowing journey through disjointed fragments of his life. Like Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’, A Christmas Carol, Milo is transported to his past, present and future. Shuffle is the mesmerizing story of Milo’s redemption by the ghosts that guide his travel through the time shuffled episodes of his life. The film is both a captivating mystery and a heart-rending love story.

Written and directed by Kurt Kuenne, Shuffle had a single screening at the 27^th Santa Barbara International Film Festival on Tuesday night, January 31. Shuffle stars T.J. Thyne as Lovell Milo, with Paula Rhodes as Milo’s wife, Grace. Chris Stone portrays Milo’s father, Dr. Orson Milo. T.J. Thyne is a star of the television program, “Bones,” and is joined by television cast mates Patricia Blecher, as the psychiatrist and Tamara Taylor, as Linda.

As the film begins, Milo narrates, ”I’m 28. Yesterday, I was 15…,”. Kuenne uses the device of having Milo look directly into the camera as Milo narrates the story. Kuenne employs a visual style reminiscent of Orson Wells. Shuffle is shot entirely in black and white, enhancing the ethereal, dream-like quality of the film. Unusual camera angles are used to depict Milo’s lifelong passion for photography and achievements as a renowned photographer. The fragmented sequence of scenes gives the film its feeling of other worldliness.

Milo first awakens at a wedding reception. Although he does not know how he got there, he knows he is there to take pictures. Milo falls asleep and travels into his future. At the age of 92, on his deathbed, memories of his long life float by. He drifts off and journeys to the age of 30 years old, camera in his hand, sitting in a folding chair, again at a wedding. As his anxiety escalates, Milo falls on his knees in the church and prays, “Please make it stop.” Again, Milo nods off and when he re-awakens, he is an eight year old boy (portrayed by Dylan Sprayberry), camera in hand, being over run by a beagle. The dog belongs to Grace, (played by Elle Labadie), Milo’s future love and wife.

Like Jacob Marley warning Scrooge about his fate, Milo receives warnings from the ghosts he meets in his time travels. The characters that Milo encounters throughout the re-awakenings, including an onscreen TV correspondent, caution Milo to “pay attention, it is the only way you will learn.” Milo begins to recognize a pattern to his experiences and “records” in his mind his “mental journeys.” Milo is told, “Someone is in trouble and you are the only one that can save him.” The mystery is, just who is Milo supposed to save? The climax of the story is this discovery.

The innovative plot structure places the viewer in a calculated state of confusion. When Lovell starts making his mental journal entries, we understand that the time anomaly occurred near Milo’s 28^th birthday. Milo’s life episodes, visited before and after Milo’s birthday, reveal the emotional heartbreak that caused the time anomaly.

Several contemporary films and books have used fragmented time sequencing to tell a story. In the film Memento, the story unfolds in reverse chronological order. The weatherman in Groundhog Day lives the second day of February over and over. In Penelope Lively’s book, Moon Tiger, a dying old woman, in and out of consciousness, re-visits episodes of her past out of sequence. In each case, the narrative unfolds in a mosaic of time fragments instead of chronological order, creating suspense.

Kuenne’s well-told take on the age-old paradox of time travel is a refreshing alternative to the effects-laden tent poles that prop up the industry. Shuffle is a creatively told mystery and an engaging love story that will hold you spell bound from fade in to fade out.