Make a science fiction movie without CGI and explosions.
Make all mind boggling changes take place inside the mind. The mind of the spectator, that is.
Write a script that does that, yes, write that script!
Make a movie outside of the run of the mill, a good movie, about some essential topic that everybody understands.
Make it matter!
Yes, mr./missus Boss.
And it came to be!
The movie TiMER – the M graphically made to look like two people holding hands – is about the story of the girl, who is fed up with waiting for Mr. Perfect. Why can’t he just decide to determine, when they will come together?!
The argument TiMER, encapsulated in a piece of consumer electronics and (un-argued for) technology predicting “that crucial moment”, is about the alledged inevitability of meeting one’s soulmate – finding real love – the argument being that when it happens, it was bound to happen, so why not have that knowledge beforehand, and stop worrying?
(she) I am turning 30 this weekend. I am tired of waiting. I need an answer.
(he) Are you going to trust a piece of plastic over what I am telling you?!
(she) What are you saying!
(he) I am telling you that I love you!
(she, hesitates) … I don’t know what that means!
TiMER doesn’t question the concept of pre-destination as much as the belief that love is something one can influence by force of will. In the story the TiMER is very much a character itself, and as such not a evil one – more like one’s favorite source of escapist drug:
Certainty has consumed the masses. Nobody questions the concept of working for or towards love anymore. Everybody just waits for their TiMER to go off, meaning their one true match has also gotten a TiMER – or they fill out the wait in the company of inevitably less important people, until their own TiMER reaches zero and they meet their true love. Or they enter into life-long coupling, headless and duty bound to a pre-ordained partnership, some feeling paralysed by the loss of unknown joys and uncertainties of the future.
But like in any good story of convention and all-ishness a hero is introduced, who goes against the stream: Unlike her he doesn’t have a TiMER, he is way younger than her, and he claims to love her. And he initially attracted her with a fake TiMER, making her believe she had 4 months in which to let her hair down and not be depressed about her TiMER not having gone off yet…! Bad move!
Giving in to her heart for once without fear of the future and the whereabouts of mr. Right – or more precisely, once she stopped waiting – she now has to worry about real feeling, real emotions, and the prospect of trusting herself without scientific verification from a piece of plastic…
(he) What is your problem?! What do you want?
(she) A guarantee!! (Stares at him)
(he) No, your problem isn’t that I can’t give you a guarantee. Your problem is that you cannot give me one!!
(she turns and leaves)
Good one.
9.4/10 for keeping it real and for joining believers and non-believers at the end – in a finale that hurts. Not because it’s opinion, philosophy or science. But because it’s human.