Shuffle (Kurt Kuenne, 2011): US

Reviewed by Alex Canzano. Viewed at The Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

As Lovell Milo (TJ Thyne) explains to his newly acquainted psychotherapist, he has been awake for three days abusing whatever stimulants he can get his hands on for fear of falling asleep. He tries to convince the shrink that he suffers from a mysterious phenomena that causes him to wake up each time in a different period and age of his life that he has been living out of sequence for as far back as he can remember. As the therapist probes him with questions, asking him to recall his experiences, Lovell accidentally nods off and consequently wakes up in an entirely different place and time before making any progress. He desperately wishes to be rid of the disorder that plagues him to be in a constant disoriented state of uncertainty, until an ambiguous young girl informs him that this phenomena is actually a gift of unique ability that serves a greater purpose to change the course of history and potentially save the life of someone yet unknown to him. “Pay attention.” she advises him.

With new insight into the advantages of jumping back and fourth between childhood and adulthood, Lovell begins to piece together clues that point to the death of his lifelong friend and love-interest, Grace (Paula Rhodes).  Now, trying to find order in the seemingly chaotic events, he sets out to solve the mystery of her death before the day comes in which he believes he’ll have a one-time opportunity to prevent it.

It is difficult to classify the film into one specific genre because it contains multiple combinations of many. Comedy, love-story, psychological-thriller, murder mystery and character-driven melodrama, are all ingredients that are balanced together seamlessly– making them difficult to distinguish from each other. Shuffle’s unique narrative structure is carefully constructed so that each sequence contains detail that gives depth to its characters and information that furthers the plot at a pace that engages the viewer, and in no way feels “out of sequence”.

Kurt Kuenne acts as writer/director/cinematographer/editor/composer for a feature that, not unlike his others previous, that is filled with sentiment and is discernibly personal to the filmmaker. His use of light is extremely expressionistic, effectively capturing Lovell Milo’s mood with the contrast of light/shadow and frequently using highly flared backlighting that outlines his figure with bright white-light– calling into question the very reality of what is seen on screen. TJ Thyne gives an impressive performance as Lovell Milo, who cycles through a broad range of deep emotions and exhibits multiple personality transitions that are represented by his different ages. TJ Thyne was also in Kuenne’s short-film from 2006 called Validation which acquired more prize money than the cost of production.

For a film that has such a complex narrative structure, it surprisingly does not leave much up to interpretation. Rather than being ambiguous and thought provoking, it speaks a pretty clear message that leaves little room for questioning and analysis. The end was a bit sappy for my taste but the message was admirable enough. In the end the story is about letting go of guilt and grief– while making the most of present.