Flashback (2020 film)
| Flashback | |
|---|---|
 Film poster | |
| Directed by | Christopher MacBride |
| Written by | Christopher MacBride |
| Produced by | Lee Kim |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Brendan Steacy |
| Edited by | Matt Lyon |
| Music by | Pilotpriest |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by | Lionsgate |
Release dates |
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Running time | 97 minutes |
| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
Flashback, previously titled The Education of Fredrick Fitzell, is a 2020 mystery thriller film written and directed by Christopher MacBride. The film stars Dylan O'Brien and Maika Monroe. The film premiered at the 2020 Sitges Film Festival.[1]
Cast
- Dylan O'Brien as Fredrick "Fred" Fitzell
- Maika Monroe as Cindy Williams
- Hannah Gross as Karen
- Amanda Brugel as Evelyn
- Emory Cohen as Sebastian
- Keir Gilchrist as Andre
- Constantine Meglis as Bouncer/Lily
Plot
Fred Fitzell and his wife Karen visit Fred's mother in a hospital where she is suffering from severe mental decline. Fred works in an office job but begins to get vivid flashbacks of high school. He remembers a girl named Cindy Williams and visits the high school and asks a librarian about her. The librarian tells Fred that Cindy went missing after a drug went around the school. Fred gets more flashbacks and is accosted by a homeless youth in his car while he is parked in an alley.
Fred begins to have memories of a child who walked past him in high school who looks like the homeless youth. Fred has disparate memories of the child and homeless youth in which they say a single word, when Fred pieces these words together, in the memories the child/homeless youth's words combine to say "I'm in your lobby." Fred visits the apartment lobby with a baseball bat and is surprised by the homeless youth. Fred sees various visions of a mouth and of being on the floor looked at by Cindy and others. He awakes to having had a mental breakdown in the lobby.
Fred reconnects with his friends from high school and continues to have more flashbacks. He has memories of doing a drug called Mercury (or Merc) in his high school's boiler room and of visiting a club to get "uncut Merc". Near the club Fred and Cindy talk on a roof about how the drug releases people from being trapped. Back in the present, Fred is having difficulty at work and needs to present a Q2 presentation. With his high school friends, he visits the club to find out what happened and the club is now abandoned. At the club, Fred begins to have flashbacks of taking uncut Merc in high school. At the abandoned club, he finds homeless squatters, including the youth from earlier and he finds Cindy. They tell him he never left. Fred flashes back between the homeless youth and child who, back in high school took high amounts of Merc. He also sees visions of the mouth and people looking over him.
Fred pieces together a series of words from memories of the youth/child who tells him that there is a parasitic lifeform that forces people to view time linearly and that the drug allows people to temporarily break free of this and see all temporal possibilities. Fred realizes that back in high school he had bad reaction to the Merc and took a lamp and hit the child in the face, severely scratching him. Fred wakes up and realizes he has little time for the Q2 presentation at work. At work he begins to do the presentation but switches back to when he is in high school and is taking a final exam. He has a simultaneous breakdown in the past and present.
Realizing that he can travel through multiple timelines, Fred flashes back to Cindy at the abandoned club. The two fall in love and live many lives together and travel to many different places such as the Middle East and a Mediterranean villa. Eventually the two wake up in the present day at the abandoned club. Fred realizes that he can longer travel with Cindy and takes Merc to travel back to the final exam, on which he does well. He meets his wife after the exam and does well on the Q2 presentation, ultimately leading to him and his wife having a house.
Fred finally reconnects with his mother at the hospital and realizes the vision of a mouth he keeps seeing is of his mother yelling at him as an infant when he almost falls down stairs. In the present day, his mother remembers who Fred is and the two briefly connect. However, the mother dies shortly afterwards. The film quickly flips between him as an infant with his mother and him lying in the hospital bed with his mother.
Production
In May 2018, it was announced that Dylan O'Brien, Maika Monroe, and Hannah Gross were set to star in the film, which is written and directed by Christopher MacBride.[2] In September 2018, Amanda Brugel, Emory Cohen, and Keir Gilchrist joined the film in supporting roles.[3]
Principal photography took place in Toronto between September 24, 2018,[3] and October 2018.[4]
Release
On April 13, 2021, it was announced that the film would release in select theaters and on video-on-demand services on June 4 of the same year, with a DVD and Blu-ray release to follow on June 8.[5]
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a score of 57% based on 30 critics' reviews.[6]
References
- ^ "THE EDUCATION OF FREDRICK FITZELL - Sitges Film Festival - Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic de Catalunya".
- ^ Leo Barraclough (May 4, 2018). "'Maze Runner' Star Dylan O'Brien Joins 'Education of Fredrick Fitzell'". Variety. Retrieved September 25, 2018.
- ^ a b Vlessing, Etan (September 24, 2018). "Emory Cohen, Amanda Brugel Join 'Education of Fredrick Fitzell' (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved November 2, 2018.
- ^ k_elizabeth28 (October 31, 2018). "Filming wrap". Instagram. Retrieved November 2, 2018.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ John Boone (April 13, 2021). "Dylan O'Brien Searches for a Vanished Girl in 'Flashback' Trailer (Exclusive)". ETonline. Retrieved April 13, 2021.
- ^ "Flashback (2020)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved June 4, 2021.
