Main Entry: prim•er
Pronunciation: 'pri-m&r, chiefly British 'prI-m&r
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Medieval Latin primarium, from Late Latin, neuter of primarius primary
1: a small book for teaching children to read
2: any book of elementary principles
3: a person or thing that primes
4: a first coat or layer of paint
5: a movie that discusses the subject of friendships and their ability to withstand their being imbued with prescience

Primer Ground Rules
Primer - a Sundance Film Festival winner - is ultimately a movie that I would only recommend to those of you out there that really like engaging your brain when encountering a new movie. Unfortunately most people are not like that when being entertained. So for a large portion of you reading this review currently you need to hit the back button on your web browser and continue on with whatever it was you were doing. This isn't meant snobbishly - I just don't want you emailing me upset that I've recommended a movie to you that you couldn't stand. (Which has already happened to a few of my friends that I've thought would like this movie...)

The Cast
Aaron - Shane Carruth
Abe - David Sullivan
Robert - Casey Gooden
Phillip - Anand Upadhyaya
Kara - Carrie Crawford

Spoiler-Free Primer Primer
Primer at its essence is best described as a discussion of what might happen if a couple of grad students accidentally discover time travel and abuse the absolute heck out of it. Let's put it this way - Primer is a pandora's pandora's box - and believe it or not that wasn't accidentally repetitive. We are privy to the moral inner workings of two hapless wunderkind determined to make the most of their absolute fortuitousness.

Enter Abe and Aaron, two co-workers that spend every possible waking non-working hour together in the hopes of developing the next Big Thing. They’ve sworn allegiance to one another and promise to split the proceeds evenly if and when they make it to the big time.

Obviously, Abe and Aaron accomplish everything hoped and more, a machine that will allow a human to go backwards in time. This tool is easily marketable and instantly sellable but instead of pitching their invention to the highest bidder and walking away (what fun would that be) they decide to go for broke and use it for their own personal gain. And thus the story takes a highly rabbit-hole sort of turn for the worst as Abe, Aaron and the viewer are all subjected to our own worst nightmares of what could happen when human nature and time travel become paired.

Thoughts on Primer
Initially upon my first viewing of this movie I stared star-struck as if I’d just be witness to supreme greatness. “Wow” I thought “What just hit me?” It was the primer freight train and it slows for no man. Two men are given the power of gods – that is prescience – and this is how the story unfolds? Amazing. I would have never assumed this is how it would have played out.

But then, after viewing the movie again and contemplating the non-trick tricks that the writer (Shane Carruth, who also plays the ever-geeky savant Aaron) employs to get us to look away while the real magic is going on elsewhere, I realized that we actually didn’t see anything! The real chaos and fun is really only hinted at and implied. We aren’t actually aware of the real moral chaos that is the meat of this movie. Which raises a bigger issue – when is hinted at content, allusions if you will too vague or too obvious?

I really did enjoy what this movie had to say about the larger issues of trust betrayal amongst friends though. If given absolute power would any friendship survive? If you think even for a moment you and your best friend could ride out the tide then please watch Primer and think again.

Primer Spoilers
Please, if you haven’t seen the movie yet, skip on to my summation.

What finally hit me like a ton of bricks after having viewed this movie twice and discussed it endlessly is that we linearly follow the original set of Abe & Aaron (or A1) endlessly as they abuse time for their own feckless ends. This isn’t the real abuse that startles us in the end. The real abuse that betrays a trust within each of these two friends is that while A1 are out on the town getting rich off of stock scams and betting imbroglios each of these fair-weathered friends have in effect gone off and created identical copies of themselves to shadow the other. And thus A2 must watch A1 which very quickly devolves into the potential of A3 shadowing A2 and A4 stalking A3 and so on.

At the end of the day Primer has hidden the real abuses from the viewer’s gaze and in so doing has kept the really morally interesting questions to himself. Sure they are alluded to and hinted at – winked at even. But we really aren’t privy to them as much as we should have been. Does this lessen the movie for me? A bit – but it still shines as an example of quality low-budget film.

Summary
Primer is brilliant both in its dialogue as well as in its plot line. But don’t come expecting Back to the Future level special effects or even Memento’s coolness. But even so there are too few movies out there that make the viewer wake up and pay attention. Most movies allow all the truly complicated concepts to be left for graduate philosophy text books. But Primer at least has made an attempt where others haven’t even dared.

And so I highly recommend this movie to all those interested in peeling the onion layers off of their entertainment. If you enjoy thinking and re-thinking about a movie until you begin to get your arms around it, maybe just maybe you might enjoy this movie. Otherwise, rent Multiplicity or Back to the Future and laugh away the moral implications and the bigger issues inherent within the mind-job that is Primer.


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD