Flashback (initially titled The Education of Fredrick Fitzell) is a Canadian film that combines elements of psychological thriller and science fiction, crafted by Christopher MacBride both as a writer and director. It features Dylan O’Brien as a lead actor, together with supporting cast members Maika Monroe, Hannah Gross, Emory Cohen, Keir Gilchrist, and Amanda Brugel. The film showcases non-linear storytelling and a surreal aesthetic. Flashback premiered at the 2020 Sitges Film Festival, and in 2021, it received a limited theatrical and digital release.
With a runtime of 97 minutes, Flashback offers an ambitious exploration of memory, time, and self-identity. The film goes through an intensely introspective journey that takes the viewer through a labyrinth of memories, blurring the lines between past, present, imagination, and several alternate realities.
Plot Summary
Fredrick “Fred” Fitzell is thirty years old and works an office job with a manageable life. Fred is in a steady relationship with his girlfriend Karen, and has recently accepted a promotion at a corporate firm. Watching his mother slowly lose her memory to dementia puts Fred under emotional distress. To make things worse, he has to deal with even more external stressors as he begins to see troubling visions of a high school classmate named Cindy, along with fragmented memories of her.
With greater resolve to take on adult responsibilities, Fred increasingly finds himself distracted by vivid and unsettling memories from his teenage years. These memories are more chaotic than usual, hinting that he might be trying to bury something important. Looking up old high school friends reveals to him that they did dabble with one obscure hallucinogenic known as “Mercury” or “Merc.” The drug, taken during their last year of high school, appears to have granted access to a different perception of time and reality.
Fred loses hold of the present as he uncovers more of his past. This warrior’s journey to the past shatters time as he knew it; instead of serving as a constant, it becomes an unordered collection of moments, some experienced and some fictitiously imagined. He observes many iterations of himself living what would be alternate, possible outcomes. There’s the unencumbered version that is free-spirited and wandering, while a different version gets stuck in high school, paralyzed by confusion and anxiety.
A core riddle centers on the fate of Cindy, the mysterious woman who disappeared after their last school year. Frederick Fred Fitzell believes that the answer to both her disappearance and his disintegrating sense of reality lies in the drug they used and its effects on their perception of time.
Ultimately, Fred reaches a metaphorical and emotional crossroads. He can either continue to cycle through a loop of memory and fantasy or confront the choices he made and embrace the present. The film’s final sequence suggests Fred has chosen the latter option—no longer running from the past and moving toward a reality grounded in clarity, purpose, and self-acceptance.
Main Characters and Performances
Fred Fitzell (Dylan O’Brien): As a mid-twenty something man whose past collides with his present, Fred is portrayed by O’Brien, who gives a balanced performance of the character grappling with regret and acceptance. Throughout the film, we see him transform from confident and composed to emotionally fragile and shattered. The film’s complex storyline is made coherent, and understandable because of O’Brien’s performance in portraying confusion, fear, and discovery.
Cindy Williams (Maika Monroe): To Fred, Cindy is an enigmatic and otherworldly aspect of his past. Monroe’s portrayal evokes a haunting nostalgia as she symbolizes lost youth, potential, and the dreams forgotten.
Karen (Hannah Gross): Karen is both Fred’s girlfriend and his emotional anchor. She is representative of what stability and the future can offer, even when Fred becomes more anchored in the past. Gross’s performance, while quiet and restrained, brings a measure of compassion and serves as ballast to an otherwise disorienting story.
Sebastian and Andre (Emory Cohen and Keir Gilchrist): Fred’s former classmates, as well as fellow drug experimenters, their characters are both mirrors and foils to Fred’s journey. Their fragmented existences hint at the perils of stagnation and living outside the confines of time.
Fred’s Mother (Amanda Brugel): Her decline into dementia parallels Fred’s reality disintegration. Their scenes together are some of the most emotionally resonant in the film, exploring the interplay of memory, aging, and identity.
Visual Style and Direction
Through non-linear editing and unconventional use of camera angles, Christopher MacBride reflects Fred’s unstable sense of time in the film’s visual perception. Cinematography features blurred and jumpy shot sequences filled with jittery cutaways that reflect the protagonist’s shattered mind. This film relies heavily on symbolism, including hallways, locked doors, and fluorescent lights that depict Fred’s inner turmoil and feeling of being trapped in his own mind.
Lighting sharply contrasts sterile office whites with dreamy neons during flashbacks or hallucinations. Sound design also immerses viewers with muffled voices, echoes, and other ambient sounds that augment the feeling of dislocation, enhancing the visual experience.
At times, the film is intentionally disorienting which mirrors Fred’s experience with time. Like a puzzle, the film is revealed through visuals and evoked emotions. It joins the ranks of other “puzzle films” such as Donnie Darko and Memento which require the audience to actively unravel the story.
Themes and Interpretation
The Non-Linear Nature of Time
In a profound way, Flashback raises the question of whether human beings are capable of holding a fully grasped and nuanced understanding of the concept of time. It is arguing that if given the right stimulus—in this case the drug Mercury—one might encounter life not as a linear procession of events, but as a web of intersecting potentials. Fred’s ability to remember past events and, more importantly, modify them challenges the notion of destiny as well as emphasizes the temporality of recall.
Acceptance and Regret
Fred’s infatuation with Cindy and his fixation on the past underscores a trauma-bound unresolved regret. For his part, we witness this sense of avoidance deeply embedded to contrast acceptance. As is often the case, the morality tale being told is not of trying to erase one’s past, but rather accept it and learn to live in and with it.
The Mirage of Control
In “solving” the mystery of his life, Fred arrives at the bitter truth that in trying to “solve” life, its mysteries, he will end up missing out on “living” it. Overthinking, often coupled with an overwhelming number of choices available to us, is at the core of the message the film seems to wish to convey.
Identity and Change
Fred seems to have lost his identity as it has become a patchwork quilt of personas he could assume: the corporate adult, high school student or drifter on the edges of society. Who are we actually? The film seeks to answer the question of how memories, decisions, and even the very notion of identity that encompasses change.
Reception
Flashback had a moderate to positive response from critics during its release. While many viewers appreciated the film’s ambition, lead performance, and execution of the given plot, some received it as too convoluted and inaccessible. Those who enjoy films that do not present story arcs in a linear fashion found Flashback captivating and intellectually stimulating.
Critics highlighted Dylan O’Brien’s performance and noted how it was deeply rooted and emotionally sophisticated, displaying an advanced maturity that surpassed his previous action roles. The movie also gained a modest cult following among fans of cerebral science fiction and nonlinear storytelling.
Conclusion
Emotionally resonant and thematically dense, Flashback explores concepts like time, memory, and one’s sense of self. Rather than using traditional plot arcs, the film uses a man’s broken psyche to create a nonlinear narrative. While it may not cater to every audience’s taste, the film’s sheer ambition alongside emotional frankness render it a highlight in the sci-fi genre.
The film seeks to invoke introspection around the viewer’s past, their defining choices, and the necessity of truly savouring the present moment. Flashback is an evocative cinematic experience, prompting questions long after its layered conclusion: what if memories could serve as navigational tools to the countless versions of one’s life?
Watch Free Movies on Onionplay