Review of Primer (2004) by Emily C — 20 Jan 2014

I had no idea what was going on for probably 65% of this film. And the other 35% I had to concentrate so hard I felt like I'd taken a philosophical logic exam by the end of it.

The premise is actually quite simple and elegant, and the set-up original - four would-be engineering entrepreneurs lock themselves in a garage trying to come up with the next big thing, and accidentally invent a time machine. The dynamics of a group of competitive young would-be inventors constantly watching their backs in case they lose out on the big deal to co-workers who are also rivals, are well portrayed, and the low budget, low-tech, documentary feel of it all gives it a lot of veracity. The dialogue is dense, convincing and yes, confusing - and for much of the film, that's fine. You can keep on top of the intricacies of the time travel plot - nothing is over-explained (or explained at all), which mostly works well, as too much exposition would have broken the fragile premise of the whole thing.

But in the last quarter of the film, the script loses the plot completely. The motivations for the characters become confused, and an apparently random plot strand is introduced very late on that doesn't gel with anything else we know about these guys. This makes what could have been a challenging but satisfying film into a frustrating one. It feels rather like by the time they got to the editing room, there was no budget to go back out and reshoot the stuff they needed to in order make the story work.

But, that said, it's a highly original film with much exciting potential. It reminded me of something like La Jetée in the sheer creativity of how it approaches time travel. No special effects are needed, and instead the ethical implications of time travel take centre stage.