Synopsis for
Primer (2004) More at IMDbPro »

The movie opens in a garage watching the operation of a home based business. The four of them make computer boards for home hobbyists. There is a voice over of a narrator calling in over a phone. At a meeting at the kitchen table they are discussing a new product, hopefully one that will attract venture capitalists. After the meeting the two partners Aaron (Shane Caruth) and Abe (David Sullivan) discuss who is role playing which role, good cop or bad cop. Abe doesn't think he is very good as the bad cop.

Back in the garage the next day they discuss their new blueprint and resume work with supplies from their work places, which seems to be their normal business method. They pull a catalytic converter from their car and almost dismantle their refrigerator for want of copper tubing. They have some machining work done.

Back in their garage Aaron and Abe do final assembly and turn it on. They have no idea what they have created. They only know it hums and feels weird when they touch it. They black out the garage windows.

Through meticulous experimentation in the garage they find that the machine reduces the effect of gravity for anything that is placed in it.

Abe wakes up on his bedroom floor, after apparently being up late working on the device. Aaron is outside. They return to the garage to continue experimenting. Aaron has added a gradual switch to spin the unit up and down. He also discovers that once the machine starts working, it draws very little power.

They realize that they are onto something big. Over assorted restaurant and party scenes they try to come up with a new and best application.

Abe discovers that the machine puts anything placed in the device in its own time loop. Abe suggests that the device can be made bigger. A person can go into it. If they enter correctly they can actually go back in time.

In a field discussing the device Abe hands Aaron some binoculars and tells him to look at the entrance to a nearby storage unit business. To Aaron's surprise he sees another Abe entering the storage unit. Abe has already built a time machine and been through it!

They build a second machine and both go back six hours to re-live the day. Following are several scenes where they decide how to use it to make money. They decide to find out which stocks move the most that day then go back and buy them in the morning.

There is a lengthy and pretty interesting discussion between Aaron, Abe, and Aaron's wife Clara, of what would you do if you had it all.

Phillip (Anand Upadhyaya) and Robert (Casey Gooden) return to the garage. They had been told that the workplace-garage was closed for fumigating. Robert relates a story about a man who brought a shotgun to a birthday party he was at and scared everyone.

On the next trip back to re-live the day while they wait in the hotel room Aaron's cell phone rings. After they go back in time it rings again. It's the same phone call from his wife. They don't know what to do.

They have been up for 36 hour stretches, living the day in a hotel room, then re-living that same day out and about or setting up trades with their investors, or bookies. All implied.

When Abe finally does get to sleep, he is awoken by a prankster kid setting off car alarms in the middle of the night. He talks Aaron into going back before that so he can scare that kid off so his double can get some sleep

On the way out of the neighborhood they see a neighbor, Thomas Granger (Chip Carruth), who starts following them. They realize it is his double who has come back through time. They give chase and Granger falls down in a backyard. They don't know where he got a device. They discuss who will be to blame for telling the secret in the future.

Thomas Granger is comatose. They can't figure out why or how.

That prompts Abe to decide to go back for a longer trip, 4 days. He knocks his other self out with nitrous oxide to prevent causality problems. He tries to re-trace all of his steps since the device was invented. He re-lives the introduction of the device to Aaron, but he is too exhausted to say the words he had said the first time. Curiously enough, Aaron knows exactly what to say even though Abe isn't saying his. Aaron is listening to the whole conversation on a recording device wired to his ear. He knows what he had said the first time they had that conversation. Aaron is a double too!

The reason Aaron went back was that he realized Abe had already done so. When Abe first took Aaron into the storage unit facility Aaron had noticed that Abe had two units, not just one. Abe had another machine in that other room. He had folded up a machine and took it back in time with him. (That scene is not shown.) This is what the voice over meant when he used the word 'recursive'.

The voice over from the beginning of the film then identifies himself as the Aaron who went back many days. I will call him the aggressor-Aaron from here on.

The aggressor-Aaron knocked out his double via a drug in his breakfast milk. Then he spent the day with Abe recording the conversations he and Abe had all day. The second time through Aaron was waiting for the attack he knew was coming and fought off the aggressor-Aaron.

Aaron shows Abe the tapes and how they work. It's not exact. One of the recorded conversations is with a co-worker on a basketball court. Abe listens to a copy of it while Aaron goes through it with the co-worker (Jack Pyland). On the tape Aaron makes a basketball shot. This time through that time period Aaron misses it. Aaron gets the conversation back on track, inviting that co-worker to the birthday party, because he knows what question to ask by listening to his recording device wired to his ear.

Abe and Aaron notice that as they go through time their handwriting ability decreases. Also they are both subject to an occasional bloody ear.

They decide to use their time travel device to prevent the ex-boyfriend from waiving the shotgun around at the party and scaring everyone.

Aaron and Abe's relationship deteriorates. We catch up with them at the airport. Aaron is trying to convince Abe to leave the country with him and never look back. Abe decides to stay and sabotage the boxes their earlier selves are trying to create. Aaron says something insulting about not being able to go back far enough to steal a girl. Abe tells Aaron to never come back.

The movie ends with Aaron directing a team of workers to create an airplane hanger size machine.