From a Suburban Garage, a New Take on Time Travel
By A. O. SCOTT
"Shane Carruth's "Primer," a debut feature shot on 16-millimeter for a budget of around $7,000, is an ingenious movie about the perils of ingenuity. Two would-be inventors, Abe and Aaron, working after hours in their suburban garage, stumble onto an invention whose application is not obvious at first but whose ethical and metaphysical implications quickly become enormous. Abe (David Sullivan) describes it to Aaron as "the most important thing that any living organism has ever witnessed," which may be a slight exaggeration. To call the gizmo a time machine, which it more or less is, would be to create a slightly misleading impression, evoking splashy Hollywood confections like the "Terminator" and "Back to the Future" franchises, which "Primer" does not resemble in the least."
By A. O. SCOTT
"Shane Carruth's "Primer," a debut feature shot on 16-millimeter for a budget of around $7,000, is an ingenious movie about the perils of ingenuity. Two would-be inventors, Abe and Aaron, working after hours in their suburban garage, stumble onto an invention whose application is not obvious at first but whose ethical and metaphysical implications quickly become enormous. Abe (David Sullivan) describes it to Aaron as "the most important thing that any living organism has ever witnessed," which may be a slight exaggeration. To call the gizmo a time machine, which it more or less is, would be to create a slightly misleading impression, evoking splashy Hollywood confections like the "Terminator" and "Back to the Future" franchises, which "Primer" does not resemble in the least."