Kind of a mindfuck movie.

I watched Bandersnatch last night and I’m still trying to process what the fuck just happened. It’s one of those movies that doesn’t just entertain you—it makes you question everything about choice, free will, and whether any of us are actually in control of our own lives.

The premise seems simple enough at first. You’re following this game developer in the 1980s who’s trying to build an interactive game based on a choose-your-own-adventure novel. But then the movie starts making you make choices. Do you want cereal or sugar puffs? Do you take the job or walk away? And suddenly you realize you’re not just watching a movie about choices—you’re complicit in whatever happens next.

But here’s where it gets really fucked up.

I really don’t understand if the characters were inside a game or if it was an inception kind of movie. A game inside a game inside a game, or you could say each one of them was living inside a simulation of a kind. The protagonist starts realizing he’s being controlled by someone—by us, the viewers. He starts seeing patterns, questioning his reality, trying to break free from whatever force is making him choose between Frosties and Sugar Puffs.

And that made me think—are we any different?

We go through life thinking we’re making our own decisions, but how much of it is just programming? How much is conditioning from our parents, our culture, our environment? Are we just characters in someone else’s story, following paths that were predetermined long before we were born?

The movie plays with this simulation theory idea hard. There’s this moment where the protagonist is talking to his therapist and he realizes the whole world is just… code. Just something someone else is running. And the look on his face—it’s terror mixed with this horrible understanding. Like finally seeing the Matrix for what it is.

What makes Bandersnatch so brilliant—and so disturbing—is that it forces you to participate in the very thing it’s criticizing. You’re making choices for this character, deciding his fate, but you’re also trapped in the same system. You can’t stop watching. You can’t look away. You’re part of the simulation too.

It’s the kind of movie that makes you paranoid for days afterward. Every choice you make—coffee or tea, left or right, stay or go—you start wondering if it even matters. Or if you’re just following a script you can’t see.

Fuck. I need to go watch something light now. Maybe a sitcom or something. This movie just sits with you.