Primer (film)
| Primer | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Shane Carruth |
| Produced by | Shane Carruth |
| Written by | Shane Carruth |
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| Music by | Shane Carruth |
| Edited by | Shane Carruth |
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77 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $7,000 |
| Box office | $424,760 |
Primer is a 2004 American independent science fiction drama film about the accidental discovery of time travel. The film was written, directed, produced, edited and scored by Shane Carruth, who also stars in the main role.
Primer is of note for its extremely low budget, experimental plot structure, philosophical implications, and complex technical dialogue, which Carruth, a college graduate with a degree in mathematics and a former engineer, chose not to simplify for the sake of the audience. The film collected the Grand Jury Prize at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, before securing a limited release in the United States, and has since gained a cult following.
Two engineers – Aaron and Abe – supplement their day-jobs with entrepreneurial tech projects, working out of Aaron's garage. During one such research effort, involving electromagnetic reduction of objects' weight, the two men accidentally discover an 'A-to-B' time loop side-effect; objects left in the weight-reducing field exhibit temporal anomalies, proceeding normally (from time 'A,' when the field was activated, to time 'B,' when the field is powered off), then backwards (from 'B' back to 'A'), in continuous A-then-B-then-A-then-B sequence, such that objects can leave the field in the present, or at some previous point.
Abe refines this proof-of-concept and builds a stable time-apparatus ("the box"), sized to accommodate a human subject. Abe uses this "box" to travel six hours into his own past—as part of this process, Original-Abe sits incommunicado in a hotel room, so as not to interact or interfere with the outside world, after which Original-Abe enters the "box," waits inside the "box" for six hours (thus going back in time six hours), and becomes Future-Overlap-Double-Abe, who travels across town, explains the proceedings to Aaron, and brings Aaron back to the secure self-storage facility housing the "box." At the end of the overlap-timespan, Original-Abe no longer exists, having entered the "box," rewound six hours, and become Future-Overlap-Double-Abe for the remainder of time.
Abe and Aaron repeat Abe's six-hour experiment multiple times over multiple days, making profitable same-day stock trades armed with foreknowledge of the market's performance. The duo's divergent personalities – Abe cautious and controlling, Aaron impulsive and meddlesome – put subtle strain on their collaboration and friendship. These tensions come to a head after a late-night encounter with Thomas Granger (father to Abe's girlfriend Rachel), who appears inexplicably unshaven and exists in overlap with his original suburban self. Granger falls into a comatose state after being pursued by Aaron; Aaron theorizes that, at some point in the future, Granger entered the "box" (at an unknown time, for unknown reasons), with timeline-altering consequences. Abe concludes that time travel is simply too dangerous, and uses a second apparatus (his "failsafe box," built before the experiment's beginning and kept continuously running in a secret location), traveling back four days to prevent the experiment's launch.
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