Carl (Toby Jones) lives a quiet life in his bare beige flat, until he wakes one morning on the sofa, with no recall of the night before. In the bathroom he finds the body of a young woman, Abby (Sinead Matthews), who he'd met through his first try at online dating. What had happened, what had he done - and what does he do now?
Further complicating his life, his mother (Anne Reid), is threatening to visit, even though they haven't spoken for years. Carl is attached to the kaleidoscope his father gave him when he was a child, and it's fractured images constant changes of pattern reflect the confusion in his mind. It gradually becomes apparent that not everything Carl believes is reality.
A complex psychological drama, Kaleidoscope explores the fevered mind of a man suffering from the trauma in his past and losing his grip on the real world. Panoramic shots of the vast block of flats serve to emphasis Carl's insignificance in the world. It's slow (sometimes too slow), tense, with sudden explosions of action, and keeps the viewer wondering throughout.
Jones is brilliantly understated as Carl, trying to find a foothold on a shifting landscape, and Reid surprises with a sinister performance of insincerity and menace. It's not always an easy watch, but this is a film you could see several times and still be finding new aspects to the plot and characterisation.
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