8 / 10. Brilliant yet darkly bonkers with an authentic 1980s setting. The innovative new ‘choose your own adventure’ system works well

Netflix’s Black Mirror: Bandersnatch is a unique, interactive sci-fi film experience and part of the Black Mirror anthology series, written by creator Charlie Brooker and directed by David Slade.

In Bandersnatch, viewers make decisions for the main character, Stefan, and a brief tutorial explains that viewers are presented with choices on screen at certain points. You have ten seconds to choose or a default decision is made.

Set in 1984, Bandersnatch follows computer programmer, Stefan Butler (Fionn Whitehead), as he attempts to adapt a fantasy ‘choose your own adventure’ gamebook, Bandersnatch by eccentric Jerome F. Davies (Jeff Minter), into an adventure video game.

Stefan pitches the Bandersnatch game to video game company Tuckersoft, run by Mohan Thakur (Asim Chaudhry) and famous game creator Colin Ritman (Will Poulter). Stefan is given the choice of accepting or rejecting help from the company to develop the game. A choice is made for the viewer here, then it backtracks to that point, and events take an interesting turn as Stefan works on the increasingly complex game, and has fraught interactions with his father Peter (Craig Parkinson), and therapist, Dr Haynes (Alice Lowe).

I loved ‘choose your own adventure’ books as a kid, a favourite was Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone’s The keep of the Lich-lord. I don’t know what a Lich-lord is, but I loved it and read it repeatedly. I also remember a 1980s competition book called Steeleye and the Lost Magic which I also loved, but I digress...

Bandersnatch follows the ‘choose your own adventure’ premise updated for a digital world, and the system works well. It’s great to watch with a friend and argue over the choices, but quickly. There are minor and major decisions, and some viewers must try again, if they go down the wrong path …

This is an innovative and immersive new format and it plays out similarly to the Life is Strange or Detroit: Become Human video games, which are like interactive films.

Black Mirror is always brilliant yet bonkers and this is no exception, there’s an interesting back story which has dark undertones as usual, and themes of the illusion of conscious will. It left me wanting to read the fictional Bandersnatch ‘choose your own adventure’ book, and find out more about its origins and author.

The actors all gave good performances, but Bandersnatch was fast paced and there wasn’t time to focus on the characters. The novelty of the options kept it interesting, my runtime was around 1.5/2 hours and I ended up with three different endings, going back a little and choosing different options. Upon researching, there are five ‘main’ endings but multiple variations, so you can spend a long time re-watching and making different choices. In some cases, certain loops in the narrative will direct viewers to a specific route, regardless of the choices they make. The film features great 1980s music (e.g. Tangerine Dream) and has an authentic setting and fantastic retro style video games.

Hope there’s more of this kind to come.