Primer

This is an independent film about these four guys who hang out and invent some high tech gadget – they never explain what it really is. These guys are all friends, but they argue like crazy about who’s going to do what and who’s going to market this thing to whom. They sit in the garage and at the kitchen table and bicker about diagrams and prototypes. They buy parts from Walmart, and cut things off their cars and refrigerators. Two of the guys are kind of tweaking this project on their own without telling the other two. The two guys figure out a way to go back in time, in which they figure out which stocks to buy and get rich off of. They still don’t tell the other two guys. They end up making body doubles of themselves and things start to get bizarre. One guy ends up bleeding from his ear. They beat up ex-boyfriends. They kidnap each other. They both can’t write anymore – seriously, they write letters like a first grader. Apparently, things get weird when you create duplicates and triplicates of yourself – think about it, do both of your cell phones ring, or just the first one the signal finds – didn’t think about that before, did you?

The acting in the film is a little tense and rushed. People don’t actually argue as quickly and irrationally as these guys are doing. The sound doesn’t line up with the mouths and actions in this film, which is kind of amateur in my opinion. You could have at least gotten that right before going to market with this movie, right? And, word of advice from someone who has never made a movie: don’t film a scene in the middle of a loud fountain and expect to be able to hear ANYTHING at all besides water. There’s also a piano soundtrack playing between scenes that remind me of Sesame Street. With all of these flaws, this film was actually interesting to watch. Yes, it hearkens back the film Pi, in that it’s super convoluted, but enough of it makes sense, that you feel like any second it will resolve itself and everything will almost make complete sense. And of course, it doesn’t. I’m unsure whether I liked this film or not, but I’m leaning towards yes. When I go back in time myself, I’ll consider changing my mind, but in an odd way, it was well done (with some glitches).