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Uncertainty

Play trailer Poster for Uncertainty Released Nov 13, 2009 1h 44m Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
50% Tomatometer 26 Reviews 33% Popcornmeter 1,000+ Ratings
A coin flip decides whether a young couple (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Lynn Collins) attends a Fourth of July bash or has a wild adventure in the city.
Uncertainty

What to Know

Critics Consensus

Uncertainty benefits from an evocative setting and likable leads, but its gimmicky gambit fails to pay off, fatally undermining its impact.

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Critics Reviews

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Lisa Kennedy Denver Post Rain Li's crisp cinematography gives the entwined stories different but complementary visual styles. Paul Zucker's editing supports each genre then poses fresh questions by leaping from one to the other. Rated: 2.5/4 Jan 8, 2010 Full Review Walter V. Addiego San Francisco Chronicle The film bets everything on an unconventional structure, but fails to do much with it. Rated: 2/4 Dec 11, 2009 Full Review Stephen Holden New York Times A taut, skillful exercise in cinematic clockwork. Rated: 3/5 Nov 13, 2009 Full Review Dennis Schwartz Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews The gimmicky filming technique backfires. Rated: C+ May 26, 2013 Full Review TV Guide Unfortunately, the movie lacks narrative balance -- not in terms of screen time but in terms of raw audience interest. Rated: 2/4 Sep 25, 2011 Full Review Christopher Long Movie Metropolis Perhaps Uncertainty is a metaphor for the writing process. You start with a blank page then you have to make a decision, any decision, and follow it as far as you can. Rated: 4/10 May 1, 2010 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

View All (262) audience reviews
John C Uncertainty is about a young couple of flip a coin to decide what they're going to do with the rest of their day. We, the viewers, are then treated to two different intermingling stories (parallel universes if you like) involving the same couple and showing us what happened along each path. It's kind of like Sliding Doors, but with a bit more action in it. One story involves the couple on the run from dangerous gangsters and the other involves them going home to their family. Now, it could just be me (I prefer the `action' genre generally), but I found the half of the film dedicated to the couple on the run from the gang to be the far more entertaining of the two, while the story about them confronting issues with their family a little dull. It could just be me. Maybe someone who prefers drama over action would prefer the other one. Either way, everyone plays their part pretty well and there are worse films to watch. Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 10/24/24 Full Review Audience Member A good attempt at an interesting idea, but doesn't quite come together. I liked the green story better, to my surprise. Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/28/23 Full Review Audience Member The title is right, I ain't really certain what actually happens... Rated 2 out of 5 stars 02/04/23 Full Review Audience Member This was bad, real bad. Not even Joseph Gordon Levitt looking the HOTTEST I'VE EVER SEEN HIM could help to make it more interesting. Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review Audience Member It's the Fourth of July, and Kate (Lynn Collins) and Bobby (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) are a young couple who have been together for ten months. They are struggling to make a decision: do they stick with tradition and spend the weekend with Kate's family, or do they set out on their own for a spontaneous adventure? So they decide to flip a coin and after making their initial decision, an alternate narrative emerges to show just what would have happened had they chosen to do otherwise. One storyline takes place in Brooklyn, where Bobby and Kate decide to go visit Kate's family with its share of family drama. The other storyline takes place in Manhattan where Bobby and Kate find a cellphone in a taxi belonging to a criminal who values it at $500,000. The implications of each choice are profound. As the stories diverge and a "what if" scenario becomes reality, it soon becomes apparent how much one seemingly minor decision can ultimately affect the rest of our lives... "Uncertainty" is based on how the course of our lives is determined by the countless decisions - major and minor - we make on a daily basis. One simple and seemingly insignificant act of choice can set the course for our entire future. This sort of parallel storyline is hardly new, "Sliding Doors" from 1998 is one good example, but with the former there´s just no real sense in keeping these two story lines parallel as the simply don´t connect the dots and present a meaningful conclusion. The story lines has weight on its own, but together they simply have no proper point of convergence. So it all becomes incoherent and inconsistent. With that said, we still get good acting from both Lynn Collins and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, but that can´t save a frustrating cut up and partly messy movie experience. Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/21/23 Full Review Audience Member Definitely not my kind of movie...:( It just couldn't keep my attention nor touch me...:( Rated 2 out of 5 stars 02/13/23 Full Review Read all reviews
Uncertainty

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Cast & Crew

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Movie Info

Synopsis A coin flip decides whether a young couple (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Lynn Collins) attends a Fourth of July bash or has a wild adventure in the city.
Director
Scott McGehee, David Siegel
Producer
Scott McGehee, David Siegel
Screenwriter
Scott McGehee, David Siegel
Distributor
IFC Films
Production Co
IFC Films
Genre
Drama
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Nov 13, 2009, Limited
Release Date (Streaming)
Jul 1, 2016
Box Office (Gross USA)
$36.2K
Runtime
1h 44m