Stick with this one until the end when all the seemingly impossible story elements come together
by Martin Hafer
Flipped is an extraordinary film. Imagine a movie where one actress is in nearly every scene…by herself! Yet, if you are patient, the movie is well done and worth your time.
When the film begins, a professional model and her boyfriend have just had a horrible accident in her car and they’re stuck in a huge ditch in the middle of no where…and well off the highway. You have no idea how this happened but you can tell the woman is in dire need of help. She is upside down and wedged into her seat and cannot get out of the car. As for the boyfriend, he appears dead or nearly dead and cannot give her any help. Things only get worse when she awakens, as she finds that her cell phone is broken and won’t dial correctly…and several buttons don’t work. She cannot dial the 911 number for the police and instead tries dialing using the working numbers. So, she randomly dials….hoping to find someone who is willing and able to help. One person is willing to listen and seems ready to help. However, through the course of the film, he becomes increasingly hostile and nasty. In fact, he later seems threatening and malevolent. Will help arrive before this strange, disembodied voice at the other end of the phone line arrives to do God knows what?!
As I watched this film, several things struck me. First, the film is amazingly claustrophobic and odd, as almost the entire movie has this poor actress upside down…carrying the entire film on her own aside from the occasional voice of the weird guy on the phone. It’s a strange and experimental sort of film that must have been hellishly difficult and I give Stella Maeve kudos for being willing and able to act in such a difficult situation. Likewise, filmmaker Harris Demel was able to do something amazing…to keep the film interesting even though most every shot is of the main character stuck upside down in her wrecked car! The problem, however, is that some folks might not want to see a strange film like this…so it might be a bit of a hard sell. Second, there seem to be several inconsistencies through the movie and I thought they might be plot holes. Well, by the very end of the production, I realized that there were legitimate reasons for all this….so you just need to watch this film without worrying about details that might seem poorly worked out…as it all does make sense by the end. Overall, this movie uses its low budget exceptionally well and is worth seeing…just be patient and you’ll be amply rewarded.
