Primer

An engineer builds a machine (quite by accident) that can transport the user back in time. But his discovery comes with an ominous caveat, because at the heart of this puzzling device, nothing is as it seems on the surface. The narrative inventively blends a patchwork story line with overlapping streams of dialogue that help build tension and suspense in this Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize winner. David Sullivan and Shane Carruth star.

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» Reviewed by 21 people

I'm still confused. Both by the plot and the writing/directing. It's a bit hard to care about characters if you're still not sure what their names are 75 min. into it. If I could go back in time, I'd go back and not watch this.
- spprs

I've never seen anything like it. The elements of the typical independent film convention and style compliment material usually reserved for money machine summer sci-fi surprisingly well. I've seen independent films actually have things like time travel in it before, but never explored from the angle used in this film, an angle that is causes me to see it as more of a sci-fi indy than an indy sci-fi. Just watch it.
- wou 770690

This movie is a really awesome low budget indie film with a great premise. The two leads are well developed throughout the *very confusing* roll out of events. You might have to watch it a second time to figure out what happens, but by golly its a joy to get there.
- Skapoko

i had such a hard time believing in the credibility of the characters... which got in the way of everything else. time travel should be exciting, intense, foreboding, etc! but in the first ten minutes i was so frustrated by the way the lines were delivered: poor timing, really bad sound, from two super bland guys who i had no motive to care about... there was absolutely NO depth in their personalities, no opposition to their story, yawn yawn yawn. i really enjoy this genre and was hoping for a lot more from this movie.
- marcusv

What if you opened Pandora's Box, only to realize that the box was already open, and you had opened it yourself, perhaps an infinite number of times? This remarkable film's characters do just that, by creating a device that drops them down the rabbit hole. Utilizing taut dialogue and perfectly paced narrative, this shoestring-budget wonder manages to convincingly portray the creation of a machine whose possibilities are beyond its creators comprehension. Even more fascinating are the changes wrought in its creators. A mind bender that also meditates on the strength of friendship and family bonds, it brews a toxic mix of fear and greed that can destroy both. I watched it, stared into space thinking about it for an hour, then watched it again. Excellent film.
- AH 806244

I went through 3 stages with this movie as I re-viewed it and thought about it. After the first viewing, I was impressed with the sci-fi aspects of it, especially the concept of the time loop and the way the machines worked. However, I was somewhat confused by the plot toward the end. So I re-watched it carefully until I felt I understood all the various plot lines and duplicates, and saw how it all fit together, and at that instant, it all seemed very cool. However, after that epiphany, it all started to fall apart. All those entanglements they introduce don't make sense within the framework for time travel they've established. They've created all kinds of paradoxes and reversed causalities that are entirely glossed over. I began to feel as though the end of the movie was deliberately made confusing in order to delay understanding and the ultimate conclusion that it doesn't make a lot of sense. In addition, the Grainer element is never explained, and the thought of going back in time to impress people at a party seems a little overblown - although I suppose going back in time to make money on stocks isn't much better. On the plus side, I thought the acting was good and the overall concept was interesting. However, making your plot opaque does not make it "deep".
- drasher

I can't even begin to explain Primer. Heck, I'm still not entirely sure what happened myself. I think I could watch this movie about three more times and still not be entirely sure about the story. But, wow, was Primer a great movie. Made by a first-time filmmaker with no idea how to film a movie, Primer is a very interesting study in amateur film. The script is fast and hard, with characters talking over one another and major plot points being flung at the viewer in quick succession. The movie was filmed on a very low budget, and then went on to beat out Garden State at the Sundance Film Festival. Without attempting to analyze the plot, all I can say is "Wow." Primer doesn't treat its audience like typical theater-goers. It doesn't spoon feed the viewer details step-by-step like most movies do. The plot is intricate and complex, to say the least, and once the story begins the viewer is never given a chance to catch up. Primer starts off a little slow, but as the momentum builds, the film gets quicker and the story get deeper. Primer will blow your mind. If you don't mind thinking while you're relaxing on the couch, then this one is for you. The DVD seemed to present the film quite accurately. I'm not sure what this movie looked like in theaters, so I can't be sure, but I'd imagine all of the shortcomings on the DVD were part of the film itself. Being filmed with such a low budget, I didn't expect anything more the stereo sound. While the sound stage was noticeably narrow, the dialogue cam through clearly, even with several characters speaking at once. For a stereo track, this mix sounded quite good. The video was grainy and rough, especially in the darker scenes. I attribute this to the quality of equipment and film used when making the movie. Nothing looked so bad that it was distracting, but it was obviously a low budget movie. However, the look for the film perfectly.
- eclapham

Time travel is one of the holy grails of sci-fi movies. Primer was able to take time travel and see both the good and the bad sides, while making you believe that time travel is possible.
- CB 657518

Watching and thinking makes their brains hurt and most people are stupid. Honestly, this was a great low budget movie. The acting wasn't spectacular, the plot had a hole or two. But overall the story and concept was fantastic. Beware though, as you may read in other reviews, this is a complicated movie. It may require an extra viewing or an search on the IMDB to fully understand what you saw. I personally was compelled enough by this movie to see it again tonight. The only draw back I felt was that I was only getting a piece of a bigger story. This movie is only 75 minutes in legnth, most likely due to budget constraints. However, this is a double edged sword because I also feel they did an EXCELLENT JOB at making the viewer feel almost as if they were in the characters shoes. Which is part of the reason it was so confusing because the characters were equally confused or unsure. I feel this is an excellent movie and you should give it a shot.
- oqm 607085

I am so glad I watched this movie, I cannot believe Carruth made this for $7000. It's probably the best movie I've seen since Memento and Donnie Darko. The only knock on the movie is the character development isn't what it could be, but it's barely over an hour long, what can be expected? People may say it's confusing or hard to understand, I'm quite the math/computer "geek", but I still don't think the dialog is all that difficult for people who aren't, and if it is, just ignore it and focus on the story and timeline, as it's more important than what they were making or how they made it. Apparently most of the scenes were done in one shot and most of the cast had no acting experience, yet the acting was good and very believable, especially by the 2 stars (Shane Carruth & David Sullivan). I highly recommend turning on the Director's commentary afterwards, he talks about all the subtle moments in the movie that you may have missed (and by knowing the ending, understand why it's there). If you don't understand something, you should after watching it a second time with the commentary of him basically outlining the story. This movie's not for everybody, but anybody who loves Sci-Fi and got "12 Monkeys" without having to have it explained should understand and like "Primer".
- Scorbutic

I've been looking forward to this since I first read about it, and this absolutely did not disappoint. I've been in a 3 man software startup, and the garage entreprenuer scenes aren't 100% perfect but they are the best I've ever seen -- the texture, mood, and style of interaction are spot on, even if some of the technobabble might fall apart on detailed inspection from a true domain expert. As a whole, the plot of the movie is deliberately confusing, and probably impossible to understand, but I did not hold that against it - I greatly enjoyed speculating about the overlapping paradoxes. Like Donnie Darko, this movie works best not being completely parsable. I am confident this will end up in my personal Top 5 movies for the year. Inevitably this will be part of a personal top 5 for 2005.
- Stew & Terri

A fascinating movie. The protagonists become Rosencrantz & Guildenstern to their own lives and do what must be done while not understanding why. As it plays with time, you can connect every single point. It's internal logic works. Yet, while like the characters you may know why everything happens it's almost impossible to tell what exactly happened. A should-have-been cult classic along the lines of Aronofsky's Pi.
- Mercurywaxing

As a viewer I constantly find myself predicting plot twists or solutions long before they happen. In films with a twist, I find myself groaning when the inevitable "explanation montage" happens at the end (Sixth Sense, The Prestige, etc). This film is pure joy because it demands the full attention of the viewer to unravel, and explains very little, making repeat viewings necessary and highly rewarding. Furthermore the film is proof that creative, story-driven scifi is not dead and can be done without a ridiculous budget for shiny CG.
- Rorschach

If you don't like a movie, critique the movie, please, not the people who like it... I loved it. I found it frustrating the first time through, but even so, I was totally absorbed in the building suspense. I felt I was in over my head, which seemed appropriate, since the movie was from the point of view of two men who were in over their heads. I watched it again with commentary (which, for such a short film, was no trouble) and started to puzzle together some of the plot and theme pieces I was missing. Then I watched it a third time and found an internally consistent, thematically realistic, perfect answer to What If such a machine existed. I absolutely loved it.
- wbn 1710215

This is a movie that should be shown to the filmmakers of the future as an example of what can be done with few resources, a small budget and a lot of imagination. The editing is heroic. The acting is surprisingly natural and genuine. A really good movie, but don't expect your run of the mill time traveling clichés.
- LyonLamb

I initially thought Primer was a weak, mumbly mess that could have been much better written, edited, and acted. I had hoped for Enigma but got Office Space instead (so I said). However, given its $7K budget and my network and audio problems right before getting a new laptop, I decided to give Primer a second chance (and a third view). It is a fairly memorable story for being so low-key if intentionally cryptic. Primer is no Memento (which I have seen eight times) but it still holds my interest enough that I expect to figure it out. As for the story, two garage-startup engineers puzzle their way into inventing a time machine and agree to keep it secret -- yet all they do is pussyfoot around, unethically use themselves as test subjects, and scheme to do who knows what else. (Q. What kind of time machine requires you to sit in a crate in a storage locker for 10 hours at a crack? A. One that costs $7K in PVC pipe and grommets!) Layer on layer of temporal complexity is implied in the film's second half -- I just wish for exposition at least as clear as the muttered technogabble (which I get) in the film's first half. I hope the sepia, blue, and green tones in most scenes were intentional for artistic reasons and not just for the lack of UV, fluorescent, and other filters. Primer is on the whole memorable and impressive, esp. given its limited resources, but properly produced it could be so much more. It is like a cat burglar who had the entire museum to himself yet only lifted a box of Kit Kat bars from the gift shop. 2 stars up to 3 stars. (9-5-07 updated 9-7-08)
- robowriter

While the premise to this movie is sort of interesting, the mostly talky movie didnt show it well, was rather boring. There was just too much conversation (lots of it in techno babble) and not enough action or direction to fully explore or expose the time travel subtext. The relationship between the two main character friends seemed authentic, but still undeveloped, as were all the relationships in the movie, and the plot was way too hidden to truly engage this viewer. While I think I have a general idea of what was going on by the end, I did not feel compelled to watch the movie again to see if I had figured it out correctly.
- VJ Purplequeen

I *so* wanted to like this movie. I don't mind confusing scenes, dialog with references to things not previously discussed, etc. - but it needs to tie to something. I'm sure the "clues" where there for me to pick up if I had had an extra dose of caffeine or wanted to watch the movie a second or third time. Which I didn't (I know that's a sentence fragment, but...it fits with this movie). I gave the movie two stars because I think for the amount of money spent on it, it is a really good student film. That's how I would classify it - something quasi-clever, but not enough really to move you and start to care about the principals involved. I think with a little more care about bringing the audience along for the ride, this could have been a *great* film. As it was, it was barely tolerable. Want to see a movie that deals with with "same person at the same place at the same time" but is more accessible? Try "The Prestige". Sure, it's a big Hollywood production, but you can at least enjoy the ride.
- GM - Austin, TX

I'm with the lost and confused folks on this one. There was just too much jumping back and forth, and not enough explanation. I don't mind being challenged by a film and I consider myself to be above average in intelligence... but this film was just too demanding. Not being a science major or an engineer, most of the tech talk was lost on me, and there sure is a lot of it. Ok, no biggy... I could kind of figure out the basics of what they were getting at and the inside view into nerdy science development was kind of cool... but then it just got even harder to keep up with once they started messing around with time. It was very difficult to tell from one scene to another what time period was being watched (present, past, future?) or which set of characters were doing the talking (the "real" guys or their doubles?). This was not a pleasant experience such as the confusion that sets in when watching Memento, which was a brilliant and engaging film. The comparisons to Memento in my opinion fall flat (the movies are not alike in any way). Based on all the raving reviews here I was really excited to see this movie, but unfortunately, I was disappointed. It's not that I hated it... granted, it did keep my attention throughout... but what bothered me is that it seemed to be deliberately trying to make me feel stupid, a sort of arrogance that I don't enjoy coming from a movie. I watched it all the way through, then went back and re-watched parts that had left me particularly confused. Even with the repeat viewings I'm sorry to say that I still have no idea what was going on.
- Anathema23

I've looked at a lot of the other reviews, good and bad and see truth in all of them. My personal experience with this movie is that it is most definitely worth watching. And with repeated viewing, assuming that leads to greater understanding, this movie may rate another star or two from the three that I already gave it. But the reality is, the main criticism of a complicated plot is dead on. From the scientific jargon, to the unapologetic dialogue, to the primitive filming techniques to the mind breaking plot, this is one hell of a hard movie to keep up with and follow. Mostly, that's a bad thing. But it's also fascinating and thought provoking at the same time. The concepts are so interesting that your mind begs to work overtime to unravel it's mysteries. Due to the quick pace however, there's little time to reflect on what you're hearing without an occasional pause of the DVD - which I was forced to do more than once. The acting, while feeling independent, isn't bad. And the plot, beyond it's complication, may just be ahead of it's time. This is ultimately a movie that defies a great explanation and invites buckets of criticism. If you're interested in mind-bending sci-fi, here you go. If you completely understand it then maybe fill me in, would ya?
- Creeper

I'm paraphrasing here, but at one point during the movie one of the characters says, "I'm hungry. I haven't eaten since later today." That's the type of movie this is. Temporal loops and problems with causality. Not new stomping grounds for lovers of time-travel fiction. This was well done on a budget of $7,000. More talk than action, of course, but that's what you'd expect. This was a movie about ideas and not special effects. At the end I understood why this was being recommended to me after I watched THE PRESTIGE. That's all I can say without giving stuff away.
- Firewater