There are some movies you're not supposed to take anything away from besides an experience, a feeling, a rush. The obvious comparison for this film is Run Lola Run, as another reader indicated, but that film had far more cohesion than "Uncertainty." It had potential: running a domestic drama in contrast to a thriller is an interesting concept. After all, bringing your boyfriend to meet the family when you're secretly pregnant and unmarried is as ripe for tension as being chased by gunmen through the streets of New York. If you had to choose one, which would you pick?
I thought to myself at times that I was watching the male and female versions of what we look for in suspense, the domestic manners drama and the gangster thriller. The parallel narratives work for a little while, but then strangely, the tension completely deflates in Brooklyn, while it continues to build in Manhattan.
If the dramas had both advanced and each situation gotten tenser, with the mother finding about the pregnancy and getting involved, just as the gunman found them in Chinatown, that would have made for interesting parallels. As it was, you're left with a very unclear ending and a sense of pointlessness to the whole enterprise.
While I'm slightly curious as to what the writers were trying to do, whatever it was, it didn't really work. So my curiosity is somewhat sated. Try "The Hurt Locker" for an excellent indie film out there right now, or for JGL fans, "500 Days of Summer" is just fine.
I thought to myself at times that I was watching the male and female versions of what we look for in suspense, the domestic manners drama and the gangster thriller. The parallel narratives work for a little while, but then strangely, the tension completely deflates in Brooklyn, while it continues to build in Manhattan.
If the dramas had both advanced and each situation gotten tenser, with the mother finding about the pregnancy and getting involved, just as the gunman found them in Chinatown, that would have made for interesting parallels. As it was, you're left with a very unclear ending and a sense of pointlessness to the whole enterprise.
While I'm slightly curious as to what the writers were trying to do, whatever it was, it didn't really work. So my curiosity is somewhat sated. Try "The Hurt Locker" for an excellent indie film out there right now, or for JGL fans, "500 Days of Summer" is just fine.