The Shift: Movie Review

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Coming out of hiatus briefly because Derek and I went to see The Shift the other night and I feel like I need to talk about it!

It’s been a while since I did a movie review.

Honestly, it’s been a while since I saw anything worth reviewing. Partially because I haven’t been watching much worth talking about, partially because I haven’t been watching much in general, and partially just because the movie industry doesn’t seem capable of making much in the way of “good” lately.

However, The Shift was a notable exception to all of the above.

I went into the movie knowing practically nothing about it. If you would like the same experience, then I would stop reading right now and go watch it.

If you just want the completely spoiler-free version of the review, here it is: I highly recommend this one, it’s fun and if you like movies like Minority Report you’ll probably enjoy this one. Go see it!

Now entering the (mild) spoiler zone!

The movie begins with an introduction to the main character, who is suffering one of the biggest low points of his life. He goes to a hotel bar to grab a beer and drown his sorrows, but before he is able to, a woman comes and sits down next to him with a super cheesy/awful pickup line. They start talking and she confesses that her friends sent her over on a dare, and they talk for a bit. They do a sort of “Up” esque type of montage/back-and-forth between their conversation right then and shots of the future and you get a glimpse into what their lives look like after and because of that moment, which is very cool and well done.

However, it isn’t all sunshine and roses, because life isn’t, you know. Besides, this movie is billed as sci-fi / dystopian, so you know something different is coming. Kevin gets in a car crash, and when he wakes up, a stranger who introduces himself as The Benefactor is there offering him a job. It sort of all sounds too good to be true, and Kevin is very confused, but he starts to realize that he is no longer in his own world. When he turns down the job offer, he ends up stranded in an alternate reality where The Benefactor has been given complete control and the world is a bleak and desolate place.

It took me about halfway through the movie before I realized this was a sci-fi retelling of the Bible story of Job… which is maybe a little embarrassing, especially as Job is one of my favorite books of the Bible, so you’d think I’d recognize it…. but at the same time, I was just so interested in the story and the characters that I just didn’t notice. So that was a cool “aha!” moment for me when I finally realized it. I really put this in the “pro” list of reasons to go see this movie, that the retelling aspect was actually fairly subtle for the first half of the movie.

I also liked how it made me think about an aspect of Job I’ve never really thought about before: the fact that Job’s wife went through all of that with him. I mean, we generally just think of her as “the awful wife-lady who told him to curse God and die” but… she was a person. She lost all her children, too. She watched her husband lose everything and lost all of it right along with him. She didn’t react as faithfully as he did… but I’d never really thought about her as a person before. She tends to only get remembered by the worst thing she ever did… while going through the roughest time of her life.

I don’t want to give much more away about the story/characters, because it really is the sort of movie that is better just experienced without prior information. But I’ll talk a little bit in general terms about the overall movie.

The acting was quite good, the production quality was excellent, and the script/story were interesting and fun. The tension was well-done, and I jumped in one place. The emotional impact of the movie definitely packed a punch, and I cried/got misty-eyed a couple of times, not always because what was happening was sad, though… mostly it was just because it was beautiful, and that’s the best kind of emotional experience.

I liked some of the subtle things they did (like the whole, "Let's never really explain the Biblical story behind the empty tomb necklace" was really cool. I like subtle, and other movies like this in the past would have stopped the whole plot to just give a sermon in the middle of the movie to explain the necklace and I appreciated that this one didn't).

Also thought it was cool how they "showed" how God will always give you a way out of temptation. Not that it will be easy... but that He does provide a way out. And they did it without stopping to give a sermon about that, either, they just let it be there for you to notice… or not.

In the “things I didn’t like/weren’t perfect” I will admit that there were a couple of places where I felt like the dialogue was a bit repetitive and got the teensiest bit preachy but it wasn't enough to be distracting or pull me out of the story.

Overall, I’d definitely recommend going to see it. In terms of content warnings I wouldn’t necessarily recommend for younger kids, as the movie is quite intense and might be harder for a younger audience to follow what’s going on. I think my boys (9 and 6) would have been bored… too much mental gymnastics/mystery and not enough explosions to keep the 6-year old interested. Pretty sure my daughters (15 and 11) would be able to enjoy it.