The Mandela Effect (film)

The Mandela Effect is a 2019 science fiction film written and directed by David Guy Levy, starring Charlie Hofheimer as a father grieving for the loss of his daughter, played by Madeleine McGraw, who becomes obsessed with facts and events that many people remember incorrectly. Aleksa Palladino plays his also-grieving wife, while Robin Lord Taylor plays his best friend and brother-in-law. He turns to a washed-up scientist, played by Clarke Peters, to discover that the reality they are experiencing is part of computer simulation.

The Mandela Effect
Theatrical release poster
Directed byDavid Guy Levy
Produced by
  • Joshua Fruehling
  • David Guy Levy
  • Steffen Schlachtenhaufen
Screenplay byDavid Guy Levy
Story by
  • David Guy Levy
  • Steffen Schlachtenhaufen
Starring
Music by
  • Ohad Benchetrit
  • Justin Small
Cinematography
  • Matthew Chuang
  • Mike Testin
Edited byAnthony M. Ocasio III
Production
company
Periscope Entertainment
Distributed byGravitas Ventures
Release date
  • 23 October 2019 (2019-10-23) (United States)
Running time
80 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

The Mandela Effect premiered at the Other Worlds Film Festival in October 2019,[2] and was released in the United States in December, by Gravitas Ventures.[3]

Plot

Computer game designer Brendan (Charlie Hofheimer) and his wife, Claire (Aleksa Palladino), are grieving for the death of their young daughter, Sam (Madeleine McGraw). As the couple reluctantly rummage through Sam's possessions in her bedroom, Brendan finds Sam's copy of the children's classic storybook "The Berenstein Bears." However, to Brendan's bewilderment, the title is actually "The Berenstain Bears." Even though Brendan and his brother-in-law, Matt (Robin Lord Taylor), believe that their memory of the name's spelling is accurate, they find no evidence that the name was ever changed. This leads Brendan to explore many other examples of the "The Mandela Effect", or commonly held "false" memories. Brendan and Claire discover further discrepancies among their memories and "reality", namely between the spelling and appearance of fictional characters, such as remembering that Curious George had a tail, when in fact it lacks one.

After obsessing over these discrepancies, Brendan and Claire disagree over where one of their photographs was taken. Brendan is eventually convinced that they are not misremembering, but that instead the discrepancies are caused by experiencing parallel universes. Brendan also comes to believe that Sam never really died and continues to live in one such universe. Despite objections from Claire and Matt, Brendan tracks down a scientist, Dr. Roland Fuchs (Clarke Peters), who has been alienated from his peers for holding similar hypotheses.

Dr. Fuchs's research indicates that the universe is a computer simulation, and that the Mandela Effect is the result of its program imperfectly altering reality whenever its simulated inhabitants become suspicious of its true nature, rather than due to parallel universes. Brendan and Dr. Fuchs theorize that the simulation could be interrupted by overloading it with a computer program, and Dr. Fuch's old college campus harbors a quantum computer capable of such a task. This revelation takes a toll on Brendan's daily life and marriage. Brendan begins to have visions of Sam, but no one else can perceive her. However, Brendan wakes up one morning and Sam is actually alive and everyone can see her.

When Brendan returns to visit Dr. Fuchs, he is greeted by a woman who states that Dr. Fuchs committed suicide two months ago. As he had spoken to Dr. Fuchs mere hours before, Brendan realizes that this is the simulation rewriting reality again. Brendan returns to his house and finishes the computer program that could interrupt the simulation. He breaks into the college campus and accesses the quantum computer to run his program. Upon its execution, glitches begin to appear in reality, escalating in magnitude and severity. Brendan rushes home to find his daughter alive and well while his wife is panicking due to the glitches. As the three hold each other tightly, glitches become more prevalent until the simulation crashes.

After a few moments of darkness, the simulation restarts, recreating the history of the universe. In the final scene, we see a full recurrence of the family's day at a beach. However, this time, while allowing Sam to play near the water, Brendan insists that she leave her Curious George doll —now seen with no tail— with them, saving Sam's life and allowing the simulation to continue past the event that would originally lead to its discovery and crash.

Cast

Release

The Mandela Effect premiered at the Other Worlds Film Festival on October 23, 2019,[2] and was released in the United Kingdom on December 6, 2019, by Gravitas Ventures.[3]

The film was released in theaters, as well as on VOD, on December 6, 2019.

Reception

Box office

The Mandela Effect was only released on a very limited basis. The majority of its released went toward VOD.[4]

Critical response

The film received generally negative reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has an approval rating of 20% based on reviews from 5 critics.[5][3]

Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "Infused with enough deadening scientific jargon to lull a graduate student to sleep, the film, which feels much longer than its brief 80-minute running time, never succeeds in effectively dramatizing its outlandish premise."[1]

References
  1. "'The Mandela Effect': Film Review". The Hollywood Reporter. December 5, 2019.
  2. "The Mandela Effect - World Premiere". Other Worlds Film Festival.
  3. "The Mandela Effect Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved January 27, 2020.
  4. "Hey Conspiracy Nuts, There's a Whole Mandela Effect Movie Now". Paste Magazine. November 7, 2019. Retrieved January 27, 2020.
  5. "The Mandela Effect (2019)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango. Retrieved April 20, 2020.
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