As
simply as I can explain it, there are four young engineers working on a project
in a garage. The first 20-30 minutes is
almost padding for the rest of the film, because all of the techno-babble is
inconsequential, other than setting up the documentary-like feel. It works well, but soon, the story of the two
main engineers screwing the other two engineers out of the project is
abandoned. Abe and Aaron accidentally
stumble on a use for their machine to send an object into a time loop. The experiment is furthered when they insert
themselves into bigger versions of the machines to manually leave the loop,
thereby experiencing the same block of time twice. This is time travel.
The
boxes work like this: You turn the box on.
You stay out of contact with the rest of the world (Abe and Aaron went
to a hotel room and unplugged the phones and TV) for six hours. After six hours, you climb into the box and
wait it out for six hours. After that time, you emerge as a double of yourself,
six hours earlier, while the previous version of you is waiting it out in the
hotel.
It
actually makes sense in the context of the movie. Through he original experimentation, you
follow how the box works fairly clearly.
The engineers use their time travel time to check stock prices and
invest on the big winner of the day.
They begin to make a lot of money.
They think of publishing and creating new lives for one another. The trouble is, Aaron is kind of a dick. What happens if the doubles interfere with the
originals? Aaron manipulates Abe during
the trips because it is difficult to know which version of a person you are
talking to. He uses the machine for
personal reasons, increasingly edging Abe out of his plans. The loops become incredibly convoluted and
there are no tips to guide you through the process. It is intentionally confusing, which can be
considered intellectual respectful but it loses some entertainment value.
At
this point, detailing the plot really would not reveal anything. This movie was shot on a $7000 budget with the
help of Carruth’s friends so, confusing or not, it is impressive. It just lacks
a tight story. I love this stuff, but
even I need an underlying struggle to overcome, or a love story, or a plot to
kill Hitler’s grandma or something.
Realistic time travel is very cool, but without a human connection it
can be as dry as a high school physics lecture.
Aaron is a selfish jerk whose aim seems to be to screw over his friend
and leave his wife and daughter. There is
some conflict there, but we really did not get to know him well enough in the
beginning of the film so we really don’t know what to think.
Primer is
worth a Netflix rental simply because it is one of a kind. The acting is quite
good for a bunch of no-names in a film that cost less than a used Toyota. The science is meticulous, sound, and fascinating,
but to me it lacked the spirit of the fun, summertime time travel films or the
darker, pessimistic ones. It was
somewhere in the middle, and my fuzziness after watching it was not due to the
twisted timelines. It was a very good try. However, if there is one underlying
theme of Primer, it is above all
else, do not time travel with an asshole.
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