Movie Review: Primer (2004)

[Dave Gray]

Primer (2004)

Premise: Two inventors accidentally create a time machine in their garage and use it to manipulate the stock market, with compounding results.

Rating: Very good, very smart, very thought-out, very hard to understand.

Simply put, this is the most confusing movie I've ever seen.  I don't mean that in a bad way, though.  I believe that it's simply impossible to understand on a single watch (and still incredibly difficult on multiple watches).  After it was over, I was barely putting together the basic premise of the plot and how the time travel rules worked, and second guessing a few early scenes, not really knowing the implications of what I was seeing.  Afterwards, I've watched in-depth video explanations and read intricate timelines and diagrams showing the alternate realities.

Even then, it's a story so complex and intricate that it's still hard to put together.

This entire film was made on $7000.  However, it doesn't feel cheap.  It's essentially two actors, spending most of their time in rooms talking to each other.  Because of the super-low budget, the writer/director/actor is able to really trust his audience to figure things out (no studio would've ever funded this project as general audiences just couldn't handle it).  Nothing is fully explained and even the basic plot elements are alluded to, rather than specifically broken down.  Add to this that scenes often end before their conclusions are revealed and the audience is left with only the aftermath, but unsure if what we're watching is a continuation of the same timeline or an altered version of events from a different one.  Some events are mentioned but not shown, and some things (including entire characters) that are shown are unimportant to the plot and can distract from what you should be focusing on.

All that said, it's really, really smart.  The movie makes you think -- its way of handling time travel is something I'd never seen before and though it is confusing, it's not cheap or artsy in its confusion.  It isn't hard to interpret and everything is there for you to unravel what's going on.  You just have to really work at it.  Luckily, at only an hour and twenty minutes, you don't get too strained in the brain by the time it's over.

I recommend this movie to those that enjoy confusing, mind-bending films and if you're into time-travel, it's a must.  But if you're simply going to watch it and walk away, it's not worth your time.  It requires additional watches (or additional reading) in order to get the most of it.

Primer is available on Netflix streaming.

[Fau Teixeira]

I love primer .. i watched it years ago .. this is the timeline chart if you wanna see it..

warning .. all the spoilers

http://unrealitymag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/primer-chart.jpg

[Spider-Dan]

I think this chart (bottom-right) sums up Primer's storyline:

http://xkcd.com/657/large/

That said, it's a really smart and interesting movie; as Dave said, the time travel mechanism is very unique, and the film tries to present time travel in a "realistic" way (no dinosaurs or anything like that).

The first half-hour of the movie is some standard Silicon Valley venture capitalist nonsense, and the rest of the movie (which is only 77min total) is short but intense.  Power through that first 30 minutes.