‘The Shift’ Review: Amateurish Christian Multiverse Movie Draws Loose Inspiration From the Book of Job – Variety
Are multiverses in step with Christian theology? Personally, I’ve my doubts, however in Angel Studios’ religious-minded sci-fi thriller “The Shift,” the notion that there might be infinite parallel realities affords an unique, outside-the-box mannequin to check its primary character’s religion.
Right here’s the way it works: A churchgoing man named Kevin (Kristoffer Polaha) meets and marries his dream lady, Molly (Elizabeth Tabish), solely to have his joyful life whisked away from him by a steely-eyed stranger who calls himself “the Benefactor” (Neal McDonough). Kevin’s determined to get again to his spouse, however this Benefactor man appears decided to rattle his convictions, attempting to power Kevin to reject his beliefs and go together with the remainder of society’s atheist attitudes.
That’s the place the film’s different large biblical connection is available in. “The Shift” is billed as a recent retelling of the e-book of Job, during which God checks a person who has all the pieces he might need by stripping him of his household, associates and property, however nonetheless the person doesn’t flip his again on his creator. Author-director Brock Heasley doesn’t strategy the movie as a direct adaptation, however as an alternative focuses on the underlying lesson so many take from Job: It’s regular to query why a benevolent deity would enable folks to undergo, and but the character serves for instance for remaining steadfast within the face of such trials.
It’s not instantly clear what the multiverse concept has to do with that, other than providing a dramatic shortcut to deprive Kevin of all the pieces that was going nicely in his life earlier than. The Benefactor comes throughout a bit like Morpheus at first (or else a Satanic model of Dean Stockwell’s “Quantum Leap” character), showing on the website of a horrible automobile accident, the place he explains to Kevin how all these realities work. “Alternative breeds infinite potentialities,” the Benefactor explains, with a brand new universe branching off each time somebody decides — kind of a high-concept negation of free will.
The principles are complicated, to say the least, although the essential factor for Kevin to grasp is that this devilish tour information can pluck folks from one universe and “shift” them to a different, successfully banishing them from their previous lives. That’s how Kevin winds up caught within the grimly authoritarian police state the place many of the movie takes place, a godless slum metropolis patrolled by closely armed stormtroopers in opaque white visors — a neat design contact that provides the film a menacing dystopian edge. After they begin taking pictures, nonetheless, the movie takes a tough flip into beginner territory.
In Kevin restrictive new actuality, prayer has been outlawed and scripture is against the law. Heasley’s hero refuses to conform, which makes him an outlaw in a world disadvantaged of spiritual freedom, whereas incomes the admiration of underground believers, corresponding to Gabriel (Sean Astin), whom he meets at a piece website. Kevin’s defiance evokes the plight of early Christians, who have been actively persecuted for his or her beliefs, spooking audiences who really feel as if society is cracking down on their freedoms … when in reality the other science-fiction state of affairs appears to be unfolding in America right now.
Though it turns into Kevin’s mission to ditch this dimension and go in search of Molly throughout the multiverse, the movie has extra in frequent with “The Handmaid’s Story” than “All the pieces All over the place All at As soon as,” proper right down to the previous’s green-tinged, peak-television manufacturing values. For believers trying to spend their bucks on movies that mirror their values, “The Shift” does a serviceable job of providing them one other style to discover. Be warned, nonetheless: Heasley’s premise looks like one thing cooked up by L. Ron Hubbard, not your typical Christian filmmaker.
Heasley first made “The Shift” as a 21-minute quick, and there’s simply sufficient right here to help a function. All of it would have labored higher if audiences purchased the connection between Kevin and Molly, however the two leads lack chemistry or a compelling meet-cute (the one Heasley gives is sort of painful). Nonetheless, the scene the place Kevin drops out of the sky and splashes right into a lake makes an impression, whereas the movie’s steampunk finale (too clearly set to Jars of Clay’s “Oh My God”) suggests an evangelical riff on “12 Monkeys,” with the Benefactor serving as an ice-cold stand-in for Devil. McDonough delivers the polar-opposite sort of depth from Al Pacino in “The Satan’s Advocate,” but it surely’s his interpretation of evil that may keep on with audiences as they return to their respective realities.
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