The Shift Explained- The Book Of Job, The Devil, Kevin’s Choice, And Everyday Miracles

The Shift is a sci-fi reimaging of Job, complete with sacrifice and boundless conviction. As with most Old Testament stories, The Book of Job is brutal. It’s unfair and ugly and full of petty retribution and oneupmanship. As a new age Christian, a self-coined term I use to mean I reject the fire and brimstone of the Old Testament and embrace do unto others loosey gooseyness, I hate stories like this. I admit I fail more than I succeed at doing the right thing, but I try. I have a hard time relating to stories like Job’s. The God I believe in wouldn’t test his subjects because of what amounts to a bet with the Devil.

I don’t have a problem with my spiritual higher-ups gambling. I know I have prayed a few times to the Almighty to roll a nine at the craps table; I just don’t think he/she/they would gamble with their children’s lives. With all that in mind, Angel Studios'(The Chosen and Sound Of Freedom) The Shift is a more palatable reimagining of Job’s plight.

The Book Of Kevin

The film opens with Kristoffer Polaha Kevin Garner dragging his bloody body out of a lake and stating, “This is not my world.” Brock Heasley’s The Shift asks you to embrace your inner Marvel fangirl and embrace the multiverse. This time, however, the multiverse is used and potentially created by The Devil to torture and experiment on humans. Almost every world is a dark cesspool of despair and injustice. Evidently, all the other worlds are like Hell and the Devil; Neal McDonough’s The Benefactor uses them like playgrounds. Kevin had it all: a loving wife and adorable son until it was destroyed one day. His son went missing, and his marriage fell apart.

While arguing with his wife, he has a car crash, and The Benefactor helps him into a nearby restaurant and offers him an opportunity. We find out shortly it is one he has accepted numerous times. The Benefactor tells him he can become a shifter and work for him. He says he will give Kevin everything he ever wanted. Reasonably, Kevin demands proof, and to his horror, Tina, a terrified waitress, is blinked out of existence. To The Benefactor’s shock, this pushes Kevin further away from him, and he refuses to take the job. While The Benefactor shouts and tries to coerce him, Kevin puts his head down and prays to God for help. That small act of defiance sets the rest of the movie in motion.

Kevin is stuck in a bad place, cut off from his friends, family, and faith. His current world is a dystopian nightmare of back-breaking labor and unkindness ruled by The Benefactor and his shifters. Everyone knows about the “Kevin That Refused,” and he has to hide his identity. Life is rough spiritually and physically. He is sick and tired, literally and figuratively. He finds moments of hope now and again that keep him going. A dancing couple, a family who holds his remembered scripture dear, and brief moments of humanity keep him going. In this world, scripture is illegal, but that doesn’t stop Kevin from trying to remember it and typing it out painstakingly. He then gives it to his friend Gabriel(Sean Astin) for safekeeping.

Kevin wasn’t always religious or nice. In fact, in most worlds he is a bad person. We find that out later in one of the Vica Viewing Centers. This cheeky reminder that movie theaters are a luxury that better not be taken advantage of or it could be taken away in a second is one of the more clever nudges to embrace theaters or risk losing them. The idea of a memory viewing center has been used before in the underappreciated Stranger Days, or more recently, Reminiscence. Here, it is used by the Devil to torment and control his subjects. It is used as a way to push people to be the worst versions of themselves or lose themselves in grief and regret—typical Devil behavior.

He sees countless versions of himself as a bad guy in the Vica Centers. Russo, the owner, explains the system gives everyone what they want. Most people wanted to see versions of themselves that were suffering. Kevin sees himself as a prisoner, a drunk, an abuser, a killer, and a thief. Finally, he sees one where his Molly might be. This raises the question: if the Devil loves to lie, how do we know these visions of other realities are real or just something used to torture or control the viewer? Why is Kevin such a bad guy so often? Finally, he sees Molly and realizes all is not lost. He could return to her if he can get a deviator, a weird bracelet used to shift in and out of worlds.

The ending of The Shift

To have found Molly even once was a miracle. To do it again would take an act of God, but Kevin has faith and hatches a plan. Predictably, his plan goes horribly wrong, however, and his neighbor and Gabriel get shot. It turns out Gabriel is actually a shifter and may have been working against Kevin all along. Against all odds, though, Kevin gets Gabriel’s shifter and jumps in and out of several realities.

In one, he finds Tina, the waitress from the movie’s beginning, and her ordeal has mentally broken her. He next finds his Molly with her friends, and she reluctantly agrees to talk to him. She is wearing the infinity necklace he gave her to honor their lost son. He takes that as a sign they could be happy together again. The Benefactor cruelly drags him back through and demands he become a shifter.

The Benefactor offers him a choice. You can return Tina to her family and make that right, or you can have Molly back. The choice was meant to demonstrate to Kevin that The Benefactor would always provide for him and that Kevin wasn’t as righteous as he thought he was. Kevin refused to succumb to his manipulation and chose Tina.

Why did Kevin choose Tina?

Since Kevin is supposed to be a modern Job, he would always choose Tina. He couldn’t choose a life of happiness, knowing he condemned another person to tragedy. Nothing the Devil said or did would make him alter this course. It is surprising and frustrating to the Devil because all the other Kevins gave in. Only this one was different, and he couldn’t understand it. Kevin explains it best: “I am not the worst things I have done.” When Russo’s cat returns to him after four years of being missing, Kevin gets the sign he needs to stay the course. That was God telling him that miracles happen every day.

The Devil has two things going for him. Humans are flawed. We are scared and selfish. It makes it easy for him to control. We also are easy to lie to. It is easier to believe something terrible than to see the good in situations. It says a lot about us that we more readily accept someone betrayed us than to believe someone did something for us. The Shift’s Benefactor counts on that. Most of the other Kevins behaved that way. Only this Kevin is a wild card. When he met his Molly, he was changed. He found God, and his faith allowed him to endure just as Job’s faith allowed him to endure unspeakable torment.

Kevin’s faith was rewarded when The Benefactor was smitten, and he was shifted to a world with Molly as a single mother. They met just as before, married, had a son, and raised both children happily. Kevin was finally rewarded for his devotion. It’s a sappy ending that, had it come at any other time, might be cloyingly sweet, but there is an earnestness to The Shift that allows it to live in the same marshmallow space as a Hallmark Christmas Romance. Yes, The Shift is a heavy-handed film. There isn’t a lot of subtlety to it, but faith is usually more bombastic than subtle, for better or worse.

The Book Of Job

In the Book Of Job, a devout man is tortured simply to prove a point. The Devil tells God that his subjects only love him for all the things he gives them. God argues that we would love him anyway, and the two agree to observe Job, a very devout man, as they systematically strip everything away from him. God believes he will not turn away from him, while the Devil thinks he will turn away if he loses enough. The Devil takes his land, his children, his animals, and his servants. He then gives him boils. No one can understand why Job retains his faith in God. His wife and friends try to talk him out of his path, but none succeed. Finally, after enduring it all and maintaining his beliefs, God rewards him with new children and double the land and wealth.

Essentially, that is what happens in The Shift, except The Benefactor/The Devil/The Deciever is portrayed less as someone who argues with God and more as a petulant dictator who tries everything he can to control his many pocket worlds. Kevin has everything taken from him and is encouraged to give up his faith, but he finds the courage to persevere, just like Job in the Christain bible.

The Book of Job and The Shift highlight essential truths. We are flawed, but we can be redeemed. Ignoring the film’s religious aspects, it is a movie about having faith that anything is possible. Life isn’t always fair, but things occasionally work out how they should. Good triumphs over bad, and evil loses. The Shift is a must-see if you are looking for a feel-good film that is clear about what it wants to be. Some may find the overt religious messaging trite, but it is an easy film to breeze through and leaves behind a kind message. There could be worse things right now.

The Shift is in theaters right now.