'Uncertainty' review

Lynn Collins and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Credit: Uncertainty Partners)

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Lovers Bobby (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Kate (Lynn Collins) stand on New York’s Brooklyn Bridge one July 4th morning and flip a coin. Then they race off in different directions, somehow meet up with each other at both destinations and embark on two separate but intercut storylines. In one, the pair head off to her parents’ house for a family gathering. They rescue a dog along the way, and wind up debating whether or not to announce Kate is pregnant. In the parallel story, Bobby and Kate find a lost cell phone in a cab and try to find out who it belongs to, only to stumble into a deadly chase involving computer code and shadowy assassins out to kill them.

The buzz: “Uncertainty” is the latest from filmmaking team Scott McGehee and David Siegel (whose acclaimed indie “The Deep End” should have earned Tilda Swinton an Oscar nomination), but the movie failed to generate much buzz when it premiered at last year’s Toronto film festival.

The verdict: An odd metaphysical exploration that never stops feeling like a stunt. McGehee and Siegel are working in a vein similar to Steven Soderbergh’s experimental projects—the narratives are carefully scripted, but the dialogue was improvised by the actors; the camerawork is handheld; the locations are real and mostly undisturbed—but they struggle to find much purpose for the exercise. As the film slips and slides between low-key domestic drama and high concept lovers-on-the-run intrigue, Gordon-Levitt and Collins remain completely comfortable. They’re eminently watchable, as usual, and their dialogue rarely falls into typical improv tedium. But a tricky question lingers in a movie that’s preoccupied with decision-making—what’s the point? Uncertainty is a part of everyone’s life, but it doesn’t make for a very attractive quality in a film.

[“Uncertainty” is also available through “IFC In Theaters,” a video on demand service from select cable providers.]

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