Uncertainty - Kopf oder Zahl

In "Uncertainty" a young couple's lives have different paths to take based on the flip of the coin. But they don't tell us what this coin toss means or its significance, so we don't get to understand its implications or consequences.

The young couple is played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Lynn Collins. Gordon-Levitt is a talented actor and is good here, but he's better than the character. We are given no reasons to care about these characters and we know so little about them it just makes everything less interesting. I don't know much about Collins, but from this all I can gather is that she only knows how to play sexy. I would like to think that Gordon-Levitt would pick girlfriends based on more than just sexiness.

"Uncertainty" is supposed to be an interesting examination of lives travelling different ways, but the plot devices used are so lame that the two stories are just uninteresting. It is shot well for its low budget, but one should be wary of watching movies written without a script.

This film is about two lost and found stories that lead to vastly different consequences.

"Uncertainty" starts off very promising, with two different parallel plots branching off in a refreshing way. These two plots are separated by colour schemes so the stories are easy to follow despite jumping from one story to another.

The yellow story is an action thriller. It begins engagingly with a lot of adrenaline pumping. However, the thrill and suspense were not maintained. It is not helped by the boredom of the green story dispersed in between, which destroys the momentum of the yellow story. As the green story never goes anywhere, "Uncertainty" is so much better off if they just concentrated on the yellow story as a action thriller.

JGL on the phone to Chinese gangster. 'We're in the bank on the corner of Canal Street.'

2 minutes later Chinese gangster arrives at bank.

JGL's girlfriend, Caty, in a panic. 'Oh my God! How'd he find us?'

JGL 'I don't know.'

That just about sums up the nature of this film. They really didn't think it through very well. Indeed, it leaves you thinking very clearly that they had no script for this. Just 'make it up as you go along guys' seems to be the rule here and, well, it comes across as just made up.

JGL is good, as he always is, but the rest of the cast went through the movie in 'actor mode'. There is the ubiquitous scene of families all talking at the same time over dinner; out of focus views of twilight in the Big Apple; and a totally unnecessary sex scene. Sure this was all done on a low budget but so was Napoleon Dynamite. I really cannot think of anything positive to say about this film, even though I would genuinely like to do so. One to be avoided folks.

This film is good. But its different, i watched it with some friends, nobody liked it, other than me. but im kind of an oddball like that. It has two lateral plots, involving the same two leads. I thought using the colors green and yellow to differentiate was original and effective. Joseph Gordon Levitt is great in the lead and shows his range here, while Lynn Collins isn't bad either, but sure is beautiful. I had previously seen her in True Blood and was impressed, but here she takes her acting to a even higher level and leaves you entangled in her character's emotions. I thought this film has a very unique concept, and uses suitable cinematography which wouldn't work in any story, but sure does here. Overall an underrated gem from 09 that only has 329 votes on IMDb... wow...

The movie follows two possible outcomes of a single day for Bobby (Gordon-Levitt) and Kate (Lynn Collins). The two stories are almost like parallel universes, featuring the same couple. During the film, we alternate between scenes of both of those "realities". This could have made for a confusing narrative but directors Siegel and McGehee make sure we always know which story we are following with simple devices (primarily, colors and clothing but also good editing choices and writing).

Gordon-Levitt and Collins have amazing chemistry, which is showcased in two very, very different stories. One runs very much like a down-to-earth drama, where they go spend a day with Kate's family. The other story is more akin to an action thriller on a budget, where Bobby finds a cell phone that is valuable to extremely dangerous individuals.

The starting point of the narrative split is a single decision, that is eventually made on a coin toss. The whole film appears to explore the uncertainty (duh) of choices before us and how making a decision will lead us on a path that will, again, lead to more choices. It is good food for thoughts and I could appreciate how the writers went for two radically different stories, to highlight how different the future can be.

Both stories had excellent acting and were well-paced and engaging. Where I had a bit of a problem is with the thriller story, which ended abruptly and was rather unsatisfying in its resolution. Nonetheless, the whole exercise was organic. Lynn Collins was a revelation for me. As for Joseph Gordon-Levitt, this excellent actor keeps on impressing with great performances and solid, off-beat career choices. Many people like to talk about the "curse of child actors" where they disappear as they get older. Gordon-Levitt brilliantly defies this trend and oozes charisma and talent.