The UK DVD cover for Primer describes the film as 'Donnie Darko for grown-ups'; if, like me, you found Donnie Darko hard to wrap your head around, prepare to be completely and utterly perplexed by this baffling and ultimately very boring sci-fi oddity.
The basic plot revolves around a group of boffins who spend their spare time building experimental projects in a garage. The group's latest invention—a metal box that makes a humming noise—doesn't seem to be working as intended (I don't think it's primary function was to make a humming noise), but two members of the team—Aaron (Shane Carruth) and Abe (David Sullivan)—find that the machine has an unexpected alternative use: it can send objects into the past. Excited by this discovery, the pair build a larger version and, armed with the latest stocks and shares figures, take a trip into the past with the aim of making themselves a fortune.
While this might all seem straight forward enough, director Shane Carruth presents matters in such a convoluted and inaccessible manner that it is nigh on impossible to follow the film's finer plot developments, making Primer a very frustrating viewing experience indeed. The rapid streams of incomprehensible pseudo-techno-babble that is batted back and forth between characters makes it hard to remain focused, but Carruth's choppy direction, random story structure and crap editing also go a long way to confuse the viewer. As the film introduces more and more ideas, including time paradoxes and doppelgangers, it becomes more and more unbearable.
Whether the impossible to unravel plot is a case of deliberate obfuscation taken a step too far or just the result of bad story-telling I cannot say for certain, but when a film is too puzzling to be solved, even after trawling the internet for answers, and proves such a chore to finish even at only 78 minutes long, then I have no choice but to deem it a total failure.
The basic plot revolves around a group of boffins who spend their spare time building experimental projects in a garage. The group's latest invention—a metal box that makes a humming noise—doesn't seem to be working as intended (I don't think it's primary function was to make a humming noise), but two members of the team—Aaron (Shane Carruth) and Abe (David Sullivan)—find that the machine has an unexpected alternative use: it can send objects into the past. Excited by this discovery, the pair build a larger version and, armed with the latest stocks and shares figures, take a trip into the past with the aim of making themselves a fortune.
While this might all seem straight forward enough, director Shane Carruth presents matters in such a convoluted and inaccessible manner that it is nigh on impossible to follow the film's finer plot developments, making Primer a very frustrating viewing experience indeed. The rapid streams of incomprehensible pseudo-techno-babble that is batted back and forth between characters makes it hard to remain focused, but Carruth's choppy direction, random story structure and crap editing also go a long way to confuse the viewer. As the film introduces more and more ideas, including time paradoxes and doppelgangers, it becomes more and more unbearable.
Whether the impossible to unravel plot is a case of deliberate obfuscation taken a step too far or just the result of bad story-telling I cannot say for certain, but when a film is too puzzling to be solved, even after trawling the internet for answers, and proves such a chore to finish even at only 78 minutes long, then I have no choice but to deem it a total failure.