Flashback

Visions of Cindy, the girl who vanished after they took the drug Mercury in high school, send Fred back through his memories and old friends, and the drug turns out to unmoor its users from linear time. The first half is a mostly linear memory mystery; the second half breaks apart as Fred experiences his past, present and possible futures as simultaneous, bouncing between ages and alternative lives before making the choice that ends the film. Nonlinear lived experience drives much of the story, so it scores like Arrival rather than an episode. It stops short of Mr. Nobody's 8 because the temporal unmooring dominates only the second half and the film leaves open whether it is all in Fred's head.

Mercury potentially unlocks nonlinear temporal perception, but hallucination remains an intentional alternative interpretation; classify as an ambiguous drug-mediated temporal experience.