(Thanks for reading all this month. Here's a comparative review.)
Round 1: Protagonist
Both in Mr. Nobody and Shuffle, the protagonist is trying to find to his own identity by going back and forth across time, like Lovell, or shifting through timelines, like Nemo.
But the difference comes from the perspective. In Shuffle, we have a sense that Lovell is reminiscing the past. That he’s looking throughout his life and come out knowing what is his true identity. But in Mr. Nobody, we see that we are looking towards to the future as the kid decides to make his decision regarding his parent’s divorce. This make the two protagonist diverge in their actions and motives.
Mr. Nobody, we see Nemo never trying to find out why this is happening, but rather just enjoy the flow and let the anomaly be the standard and that’s because he’s exploring his futures, just looking at possibilities. I mean what can you do when you don’t what’s coming?
Shuffle, however, makes Lovell more active in his involvement with him trying to find out why this phenomena is occurring and who do you have to save to break out of this cycle. As he starts to know about his life, he tries to fix it... but to no avail, compare to Mr. Nobody, in which his wanting to fix is always granted but never really factor into the story... instead being the whole motive of Nemo, it’s more like a transition gimmick, quick fixes to jump from one storyline to next.
In fact, Nemo doesn’t seem to have much motive except for finding out his true identity... in every timeline, it seems that Nemo has different priorities in life. From one that is material to one that is about his family to another which is about his love... and so on and so forth. He could be anyone, he could be a good guy one moment and bad guy the next, on the other hand Lovell has a clear motive of finding out who needs to save and getting out of this loop.
Sure, Lovell’s motive were given to him by a little girl but least he has a goal, a destination. Nemo just endlessly drift through possibilities, he doesn’t have a personality because he needs to find one... he doesn’t have conflict, as the timeline whisk the person away from one conflict and into another... and he doesn’t have a defining characteristic other than he doesn’t have one! The audience simply forget to care about him as we know that every obstacle is a farce and that eventually Nemo will settle on his perfect universe.
Overall, Nemo has nothing compared to Lovell, so Lovell is the better character here.
Round 2: The Lovers
In both movies, the protagonist has three lovers. In Mr. Nobody, we have Anna, who represents love and passion, Elise who represent regret and responsibility and Jean, which a example of a loveless marriage. Compared to Shuffle, in which have Grace, the one true love and the angel of the story, Linda who is the helpful second choice and the Nameless, which is also an example loveless relationship...
Now I, for one, are quite angry about the Asian lover being the loveless one, perhaps it’s the inversion of the horrid cliche or the reputation of Asian women being trophy wives but it’s sad to interracial relationship portray this certain way... although two characters are quite different.
Jean, for example, is quite enamoured by Nemo, she’s the only who greets the protagonist, instead of him greeting her. She is undoubtedly excited when Nemo comes up and dance with her, and she is quite upset that Nemo has never truly loved her throughout this marriage.
The Asian girl in Shuffle, on the other hand, was just a one-night stand and probably didn’t knew him very much when they bnaged each other and after respecting his decision to stay off her baby, she retaliates when Lovell wants to be with his son again. Perhaps she was angry at how Lovell just ran away without explanation, but we never truly know her background in the future scenes other that she’s angry at him and now has a husband, who is also white... and mean.
What I’m saying is Jean acts like a real character, one we wish we could see her more in the film than the scenes she got, while the Asian girl in Shuffle is just a badly-patched up character whose only job in the film seem to be the antagonizer for Lovell, and the foil to...
Linda, who Lovell marries after losing Grace. Linda seems like a responsible person, who carried Grace when she was drunk and seem to care for her children and her husband. And, well, that’s really it. Except for blowing the minds of shippers who is shipping Cam and Hodgins... (Camogin? Hodgincam? Hodge-Podge of goodness? I don’t know...)
Elise, however, seems to be the opposite of Linda, who have a serious bipolar disorder when not being exploded by a gas tank. She has a longing for Stefano... which looks like definition of foolish teenage love, and worries constantly about not being a good mother. (Then why you have three children?) Nevertheless, Elise is interesting character and we wait to see if Elise could get any better but she never really does, because Elise is not the right women for Nemo.
Anna is. She’s independent and passionate and have the most screen time and bonding time out of the three lovers. Conflict is one of Romeo and Juliet, where they never seem to get together. Really, it was matter of time before the parents figured out the brother and sister is acting more like lovers. They agree to meet at the lighthouse sometime and they are constantly worries about it... like they don’t have trust or there’s a sudden meteorite that’s going to fall down or something. Also, being never in love so much because you’re waiting for this one guy and when his only love comes back for her, that’s the detriment of the relationship... like if you saved all this time for this one person, why decides to wait? Perhaps it might be foolish but it seems to fit with the headstrong nature I’ve seen before. Anyways, they wait and wait until they finally meet at the end, when Nemo has made his decision.
Grace, however, slightly differs. Like Anna, she is a childhood friend, but Lovell never knew Grace’s love until much later. She seems to affinity for dogs and stands up to Lovell when he needs it... or not, which also similar to Anna. As mentioned before, she’s the angel of the story, one who espouses the meaning of his affliction to Lovell at the end. In all, Grace is seen as a caretaker, who fills up his faults and reinforces his strengths. But, that seems it, really. There’s not conflict between the two. Yes, Grace can’t have a baby and yes, she’s going to die soon, but other than that, they seem to be the perfect couple.
Overall, it looks like the other two lovers of Lovell is just there to complement the perfect relationship of Grace and Lovell, while Nemo’s wives portray contrasting and dynamic structures. It’s the wife that really puts the life in Nemo and all the better for it. Nemo’s lovers handles the complexity while Lovell’s just falters. Mr. Nobody gets a win.
Round 3: Other characters
The parent provide a base for both story, with Mr. Nobody being the central conflict and in Shuffle, a major obstacle. Nemo’s mother is lecherous, clueless woman, in which she doesn’t really realize Anna and Nemo are dating until the father has its suspicion. She tries to do her best ,but fail completely, which make the comparison between Elise and Nemo’s mom that much more potent, their difference being that Mom doesn’t realize how bad of a mother she is and Elise knows it way too well.
Lovell’s contention is with his father, who is a stiff patriarch and the town doctor with a side effect of his narcolepsy, which he ignores for his status when it might... you know, endanger someone like his daughter-in-law. His steadfast behavior is the main conflict in Grace’s love, including her death. In the end, father amends his feelings for Lovell and becomes happy to be a grandfather. He always looks out of Lovell for doesn’t do it the right way, which is what every father goes through at some point.
Nemo’s father doesn’t do much other being a little burden of young Nemo, who escape his misfortune by writing a space story and Lovell’s mother is the counterpart to his father,by supporting Lovell whenever Orson, the father, threatens him.
Other character are quite sparse and only helps to little parts of the story, so it’s really up to the parents and I say, Lovell’s parent are better portrayed.
Lovell’s father is well-imposing and all-too-familiar character and the family scene reminds me of my own family scenes sometimes, while the mother of Nemo is just little be too cartoonish to be any real substance. So, with that Shuffle gets another win.
Round 4: Cinematography
I personally like the cinematography of Shuffle. The color is toned down and muted, therefore giving a photographic effect which fit nicely to the theme of remembering your past. I liked how close much of scene were, which gave me the impression of intimacy as well being inside of a brain of someone. CGI was okay, I mean, it wasn’t spectacular but it wasn’t distracting.
But I have to hand to the massive project of Mr. Nobody. the color are brilliant, the camerawork is amazing and the whole editing give the sense of traveling through timelines very well. Perhaps Shuffle’s cinematography have its purpose, Mr. Nobody takes it one step farther and makes this surreal narrative even more surreal.
Round 5: Story
So, as always, the verdict comes to story. While both story features a gimmick of traveling through your own timeline, the two movie approach in a completely different way. So, let’s do this one by one.
The main story of Shuffle is that one man named Lovell is taken out the chronological burden and starts living in random order... or it seems. Turns out, there’s seemingly guardian who tells Lovell that he’s trying to save someone. Lovell think person to save is Grace, when in fact, it’s himself that needs to be saved as Grace wanted Lovell to look at all his past moment as he has a near death experience. He resolves his life and in the end remembers that he had a fantastic and dies to visit his Grace.
Although having the small town car crash syndrome, the story is quite simple and effective. We visit moments of his life where he had a big impact, and through that plot device, we discover why Lovell is Lovell today. It’s a very novel way to examine a person’s life and the characters fit together quite nicely.
Mr. Nobody is not that simple. Main story here is that Mr. Nobody is 118 years old and people want to know what happened to him, as Nemo tries to recount his story, he realize he’s going to different timelines which split from choosing his mom or dad and finally makes a decision to which life which is he going to live.
This is all good and all but the problem of this story is this. The timelines doesn’t make any sense. There’s some much hanging threads that, for me, tips over from mystery to annoyance. Why does three wives end up in the same city? Why does science segment suddenly switch timelines? Why show drowning in the car as a key feature when it has not much to do with the main plots of the film? The whole thing is a haphazard mess and I know this probably is intentional but for me it’s annoying and quite frankly, quite unnecessary. Sliding Doors and Run Lola Run never had this problem. Yes, some parts of those film were ridiculous but it least made some sense... this movie fail provide that and we end thinking ‘what the heck?’ rather than ‘huh?’
Compare this to Shuffle, which is meant to be a homage to Frank Capra, and manages it very well. Kurt Kuenne have take this fantastical plot device and use the device to create important point about relationship, family and memory. Van Dormael tries to talk about various topics like love and fear but it comes up too didactic and silly. So, it’s Shuffle that takes the cake today.
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