The Mandela Effect (film)

Computer game designer Brendan (Charlie Hofheimer) and his wife, Claire (Aleksa Palladino), are grieving for their young daughter, Sam (Madeleine McGraw), who recently died unexpectedly. As the couple reluctantly rummage through Sam's possessions in her bedroom, Brendan cannot bear to finish the task, due to overwhelming feelings of grief and sorrow. Soon, he comes upon Sam's copy of the children's classic storybook "The Berenstein Bears." However, to Brendan's bewilderment, the title is actually "The Berenstain Bears". Even though he and his best friend/brother-in-law, Matt (Robin Lord Taylor), are steadfast in their belief that their long-standing memory is accurate, no evidence can be found that the name was ever changed. In fact, Matt exclaims, regarding the cartoon bears, "They were Jewish."

This leads the grief-stricken protagonist to explore many other well-known examples of what is famously known as "The Mandela Effect". Deeply in over his head, Brendan presents his wife with a challenge. He asks her to describe the Monopoly Man character. Much like a large percent of the general population, Claire wrongly believes that the character wore a monocle on his face. In addition, the couple are shocked to learn that Curious George never actually had a tail, despite them recalling him having one. This is a key link back to Sam's death because of the Curious George doll — seen with a tail — that contributed to Sam's untimely demise. Brendan also thinks that Jif peanut butter was originally called "Jiffy," but that was never the case. He also recalls the children's cartoon Looney Tunes, which is commonly mistaken to have actually been titled "Looney Toons."

After obsessing over these discrepancies, Brendan and Claire argue over a photograph that they have kept for many years. They each remember it being taken in a different location, and they cannot decide whose version is correct. This causes Brendan to come to the bold decision that these false memories are actually part of a parallel universe that exists side-by-side with ours. Even further, he now believes that his daughter never actually died, and continues to live in a parallel universe. Despite objections from Claire and Matt, Brendan tracks down a "washed-up" famous scientist (Clarke Peters), whose own similar theories have essentially alienated him from his peers. This scientist, Dr. Roland Fuchs, soon opens up to Brendan to back the man's outlandish claims.

Dr. Fuchs explains that his own research indicates that the universe is a form of computer simulation designed and operated for unknown purpose. The Mandela Effects that Brendan and others have experienced are system bugs introduced as the simulation is updated. Brendan and Dr. Fuchs theorize that such a simulation could be interrupted by injecting a computer program that overloads its processing capacity through a series of logic loops. Dr. Fuchs takes Brendan to his old college campus to show him the first quantum computer, which he believes has the power to initiate the logic loops capable of disrupting the simulation. When Brendan asks how no one has discovered that reality is a simulation before, Dr. Fuchs implies that these ideas are dangerous and the simulation manipulates reality to discredit anyone who posits these ideas and lead to the simulation's disruption.

This revelation takes a toll on Brendan's daily life and his marriage. Pretty soon, Brendan is now visualizing Sam, as if she were still alive. When Brendan returns to visit Dr. Fuchs, he is greeted by a woman who states that Dr. Fuchs committed suicide two months ago. Brendan had only spoken to Dr. Fuchs a few hours earlier and realizes that this is the simulation altering reality to hide its existence. Brendan returns to his house and writes a computer program to inject the potential logic loops that could disrupt the simulation. He breaks into the college campus and accesses the quantum computer to run his program. Upon the program's execution, glitches begin to appear in reality with Brendan randomly teleporting between locations, watching day turn to night and back to day instantly, and see a second moon appear in the sky. He rushes home to find his wife panicking and daughter returned to life as if she never died. As Brendan, Claire, and Sam hold each other tightly, glitches become more and more common until the simulated reality crashes leaving only darkness.

After a few moments of darkness, the simulation restarts itself from the Big Bang and quickly moves through time. Scenes of the Earth being formed, dinosaurs, and birth of human civilization flash on the screen in between lines of programming code being written. In the final scene, we see a full recurrence of the family's day at the beach. However, this time, while allowing Sam to play near the water, Brendan insists that she leave her Curious George doll — now seen with no tail — with them, saving Sam's life. Thus allowing the simulated reality to continue past the event that would eventually lead to its discovery and crash.

• Charlie Hofheimer as Brendan
• Aleksa Palladino as Claire
• Robin Lord Taylor as Matt
• Clarke Peters as Dr. Roland Fuchs
• Madeleine McGraw as Sam
• Tim Ransom as Pastor Isaac
• Ptolemy Slocum as Manning
• Vernee Watson-Johnson as Nadine
• Elena Campbell-Martinez as Ms. Garcia
• Steven Daniel Brun as Adam
• Salme Geransar as Nasim Terhani
• Jonah Fuller as a mourner

The Mandela Effect premiered at the Other Worlds Film Festival on October 23, 2019,[3] and was released in the United Kingdom on December 6, 2019, by Gravitas Ventures.[4]

The film was released in theaters, as well as on VOD, on December 6, 2019.

• Official website
• The Mandela Effect on IMDb