Confusing movies are an integral part of the movie-going experience in general. Without them, everything would make sense and be predictable, and what fun would that be? We need to be baffled from time to time just like we need to down a Big Mac once in a while so we can better appreciate filet mignon.

Confusing movies can be divided into three distinct categories:

1. Movies told out of sequence or with parallel timelines: Sliding Doors, Memento, Déjà Vu, Star Trek (2009), 12 Monkeys, Donnie Darko, Vanilla Sky

2. Movies based on a “Did it really happen?” dream-within-a-dream scenario or altered reality paradox: eXistenZ, Total Recall, Inception

3. Ones where the plot itself is confusing (deliberately as in The Usual Suspects and Pi or the result of poor writing and lost vision as in the second and third installments of the Matrix trilogy).

When it comes to the most confusing movies of all time, we can differentiate between movies that are deliberately challenging and ones that are clumsily baffling. There are some movies within the three main categories where the complication is the point (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Groundhog Day), movies where the complication is a function of the genre (time traveling in Back to the Future, Terminator, The Time Machine), movies where the confusion is a side effect of an otherwise simple plot (Run Lola Run), movies where it’s a gimmick (Star Trek, Memento), and movies where it’s just the director screwing around with the audience (Slipstream).

Some confusing movies are great; some are unsalvageable. The following list, arranged in no particular order, is based on the real head-scratchers: the ones you have to watch at least two or three times to appreciate them at their best or to condemn them at their worst.

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1. Memento

Told backwards by the most unreliable narrator of all, one who has lost the ability to form memories, Christopher Nolan’s Memento rings confusingly cool, and we can’t help being swept along with a driven man on a futile quest to avenge the mysterious rape and murder of his wife. Joe Pantaliano and Carrie Ann Moss (both of Matrix fame) play characters who are perfect in their ability to confound us even as they keep us going. For most movies, we wait for something to happen. In Memento, we know what happens. Now we just have to retrace Leonard’s (Guy Pearce) steps to figure out how he got to where he was.

2. Matrix Revolutions (2003)

After the first brilliant movie of the trilogy, the Wachowski brothers simply got lost in the humans-as-virus-in-a-computer-world metaphor. The premise of the first movie was complex but interesting and manageable: computers have taken over the world and use human beings as batteries to power their network. Matrix: Reloaded threw in a couple of new layers to the metaphor. By the time Revolutions rolled around, Andy and Lana Wachowski had gotten just as lost in the Matrix as Neo was in the beginning of the first flick. And the worst part is, they brought us along for the ride.

3. Vanilla Sky (2001)

Starring Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, and Penelope Cruz, Vanilla Sky opens with the voice-over invocation for us to “open our eyes” and then goes about throwing sand in our faces and blinding us with a world of dreams within reality within more dreams, which may or may not be reality. It’s an ambitious movie, and director Cameron Crowe does his best to say something meaningful about physical beauty, vanity, and, of course, love. And for the most part, he does a fine job. At times, though, the complexity of his vision gets away from him and we get seemingly random flashes into David’s (Cruise) glitchy, comatose brain. David tell us in voice-over: “My dreams are a cruel joke. They taunt me. Even in my dreams, I’m an idiot who knows he’s about to wake up to reality.” In typical confusing-movie fashion, all is resolved in the end. Kind of. No matter what, the movie features one of the best lines of all time when Sophia (Cruz), confronted by David who demands to know the truth about his increasingly crazy world, tells him matter-of-factly: “I’ll tell you in another life when we are both cats.”

4. Total Recall (1990)

This Paul Verhoven offering is one fun ride until the end where the “dream or reality” question is not only left unresolved but is actually made more complicated by the paradoxical clues left along the way. On the other hand, maybe we don’t need to get all the answers handed to us on a Martian platter. It’s a kick-ass action flick, where you don’t really care if it’s real or just in Doug’s (Schwarzenneger’s) brain. It’s a fast-paced case of interplanetary espionage with running, shooting, a three-breasted hooker, and a lot of broken glass. (There’s probably not any evidence to back this up, but Total Recall must feature the most broken glass of any movie in history. But that’s a list for another time.)

5. Pi (1998)

This grainy, black and white film is narrated by Max, a paranoid and possibly delusional savant. So a healthy dose of confusion is probably to be expected. Directed by Darren Aronofsky (who also directed The Wrestler), Pi centers around Max’s flight from Wall Street manipulators and religious zealots who want him for his supposed access to the mathematically-based secrets of God and the universe. Max builds his own super computer in his cramped apartment, is tormented by hand-tremors, gets hit by a train, and drills a hole in his head. All this wrapped in wrapped in the combined mysteries of the Torah and a quantum physics text book.

6. The Usual Suspects (1995)

This one’s confusing because it’s five criminals and a boatload of lies, but it’s brilliant because no one goes to the movies hoping to hear the truth. Director Bryan Singer weaves the complications into the fabric of the film; we’re given plot threads to hold, but we can feel someone tugging at them from time to time on the other end. In most movies, that’s the director you’re feeling on the other end. In this case, though, it’s Keyser Söze -- perhaps the most enigmatic, intelligent, and coolest criminal ever -- who’s pulling the strings. Unlike many confusing movies on the list, this one gives us a pretty clear resolution in the end and leaves us impressed by the brilliant, ballsy bad guy instead of scratching our heads and railing against the baffling decisions made by a reckless director.

7. eXistenZ (1999)

David Cronenberg gives us a future world of obsessive gaming where people get plugged umbilically into vaginally amphibious placental pods and live out fantasy scenarios in alternate realities. As a metaphor for the creative process (whether of art or of life), it works on a certain level. The characters talk openly about the creation of realistic dialogue, character development, contrived relationships, gratuitous make-out sessions, and “advancing the plot in the game.” There are even a couple of déjà vu “glitch in the Matrix” moments. Ultimately existentialism on film, eXistenZ turns into the listless, slow-witted, and humorless love child of Total Recall and The Matrix with maybe a little Tron thrown in for seasoning. The primary problem is that the characters are too aware of the movie’s paradox. They talk about it instead of living in it. And we, the audience, would rather do our own analysis, thank you very much. Perhaps the most confusing part of this movie is why they underutilized the great Sarah Polley, on whom the compiler of this list has a massive crush and would like to someday join for lunch.

8. Star Trek (2009)

Those of us who grew up watching the original series are inevitably predisposed to loving all things Trekish. This one definitely had some cool stuff with the back stories and the time at the Academy. But then they just had to go all time travelly on us. Not only do things get confusing, but they lose half the heart of the movie which is supposed to be about how the crew got together. Kind of makes one want to warp around the sun and tell J.J. Abrams to cut the Vulcan-Romulan theatrics and give us the movie about the Academy days we’ve all wanted to see for so long. On the other hand, it has Zoe Saldana, and don’t you think she’d make an admirable addition to that lunch date with Sarah Polley?

9. Inception (2010)

A lot of us went into this one with high hopes, and were only marginally disappointed. The special effects were innovative, stylish, and intricately well-constructed, and the story was compelling both in spite of and because of its complexity. Some bad casting choices cost it some points; it was hard to buy Ellen Page as a psychoanalytic genius for a second, and Marion Cotilliard and DiCaprio had less chemistry than an art history degree. With its series of descents into sleep and then into the layers of the dreamer’s subconscious, this one was a real head-scratcher at times. For most of us, it’s hard enough remembering everything we have to do in a single day; being expected to keep track of the various levels of the deepest recesses of the human psyche is a bit too much to ask.

10. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Of the confusing movies on the list, this one will probably resonate most with the average viewer. After all, haven’t we all struggled between preserving and retrieving latent memories of a lost love? Director Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine embodies the complications that happen when the head and the heart start moving in radically different directions. As the walls crash down in Joel’s (Jim Carrey) maze of memories, his true feelings for Clementine (Kate Winslet) are revealed, and he scrambles to preserve what he’s already started to throw away. Through the chaos, he learns that the embarrassing, regrettable memories are an integral and indispensible part of who we are. And mad props to Jim Carrey who for the second time (see The Truman Show, 1998) pulls off the sensitive, semi-serious male lead in an offbeat drama.

11. Donnie Darko (2001)

How can this cult classic -- with urges manifested as long watery worms, jet engines crashing down from the sky, and of course, Frank, the six-foot tall, freaky bunny rabbit -- not make this list? Donnie Darko understandably gets you talking. It’s confusing as heck, but writer/director Richard Kelly drops enough supporting text (see the Director’s Cut!) to let us know he’s on to something. Once you get the basic idea -- Donnie is responsible for getting the Primary Universe back on track -- the rest starts to fall into place. Of course, there’s still a lot of crazy, seemingly random stuff going on, but Kelly doesn’t totally let it get out of his control. There may be method to his madness, but in the end, it’s still madness. Also in the end, there’s also just one universe. Thanks to Donnie.

12. 12 Monkeys (1995)

Terry Gilliam gives us time travel with a twist where the traveler remembers himself as an eyewitness from the past with some nice red herrings along the way. James Cole (Bruce Willis) is selected to travel from a virus-devastated society of the future back into the past to figure out where scientists went wrong and to fix their screw-up. It’s a fine plan until Cole gets sent to the wrong time, is committed to an insane asylum, escapes, falls for his therapist (Madeleine Stowe) and runs afoul of a radical band of prankster-hooligans. Brad Pitt’s spot-on performance as a well-heeled nut job puts the exclamation at the end of this complex sentence.

13. Slipstream (2007)

There’s plenty to be said for experimental film-making as long as we remember the defining character of experiments: most end in failure. Slipstream is Exhibit A. It’s probably the most confusing and unwatchable movie ever made. A writer’s characters start popping up in his own life, which is a cool gimmick if handled with care or with humor. Slipstream provides neither. It is a careless, baffling romp through the narcissistic, self-indulgent mind of writer/director and would-be avant garde filmmaker, Sir Anthony Hopkins. We’re not along for the ride as much as we’re victims of the director’s whim. As an audience, we never get the sense that we’re important to Hopkins. He’s making this movie for himself and probably for a few close friends who are too obsequious to tell him it stinks. Just tell the story, Sir Anthony. If it’s a confusing story, so much the better. We love working stuff like that out. But don’t throw us a thousand smash cuts and call it art. It’s not challenging, just annoying.

Honorable Mentions: Syriana, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Déjà Vu, Sliding Doors, Mulholland Drive, and Fight Club.

  -- Malcolm Matthews
www.malcolmmatthews.ca

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Further Reading

A review of Inception

The Top 13...

♦ Superheroes Without Superpowers, Issue 6, August 2010
♦ Genre Heroines Who Kick Ass, Literature Division, Issue 5, July 2010
♦ Vampires! Issue 4, June 2010
♦ Geek Goddesses, Issue 3, May 2010
♦ Genre-Themed Songs, Issue 2, April 2010
♦ Genre Parodies, Issue 1, March 2010

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