TiMER (2009)

To me, this movie is perfection.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

This has elements of sci-fi and comedy but is mainly a romance.The premise is that you can get a chip installed that tells you the exact day you will meet your true soul mate. The main stumbling block is the technology. How do these work? To enjoy the film you really can't tug at the this thread. They work because they just do. If you are the type of person where this sort of thing is important, then give this a miss as it will drive you crazy. The plot is based around a character who has a blank timer chip as her soul mate (wherever he or she may be has not got one implanted) and her sister who is not due to meet her partner for another forty years.This throws up all kinds of interesting situations. If a seemingly infallible computer tells you that the person you with is not the "one" do you still carry on with the relationship?Great characters, excellent sound track, superb script and acting. The production in the opening scenes looks a bit cheap but it either improves or you just get used to it.Great film.

Oona (Emma Caulfield) lives in the near future. During the last decade, a company has come out with a "surefire" method for gals and guys to find their soulmates. It implants a "timer" around the wrist, like a permanent piercing, which counts down to the moment your true love enters your life. Oona and her sister Steph (Michelle Borth) have the devices, because the firm guarantees an 80% success rate. But, there are problems. Steph's timer says her soulmate is years away. This makes her go for one night stands with a variety of men, for she doesn't want to have any romantic attachments but also refuses to forgo intimate pleasures. At last she casts her eye on a handsome widower, Brian (Scott Holroyd). Oona is even more unhappy, for her timer has no countdown, indicating her true love has not GOTTEN a timer yet. So, when she meets eligible men, she asks them to get a timer, if they don't have one already, and hopes for the best. No luck so far, as the two devices are supposed to beep in unison if its the genuine article. This not only befuddles her overbearing mother (JoBeth Williams) but the attractive grocery cashier, Mikey (John Patrick Amedon) who wants to date Oona. What's a poor futuristic gal to do? This is quite an unusual romantic comedy, being a sci-fi entry, but oh, is it satisfying and lovely. As one can expect, the essence of true love is dissected and turned upside down. Is there only one soulmate for each of us, as Plato suggested? As of 2012, it doesn't seem so. But, there is an awful lot of divorces, too! Caulfield is beautiful and touching as the main character, with all of the others supporting her very nicely. Sets, costumes, photography and direction work for success. As for the script, its far-out romantic fun! My advice? Set the timer on the stove for no more than five minutes, then hop in your car to go find the best place to snag a DVD.

I can't communicate how much I love this movie. Definitely a film for indie, sci/fi, romance lovers. Its almost like reading a short novel - on the surface its still enjoyable, but it has so much irony, symbolism, and subtlety to it that it seems to still have something in it every time you watch it. Like many other reviewers have said, it is very thought-provoking. To be honest, this helped me a lot through a bad breakup. Are we really meant to have only one "soul-mate"? And how much is it supposed to hurt when we end it with someone that doesn't turn out to be "the one"? On top of all the emotional questions it brings up, this movie is honest, well acted, clever, funny, and quirky. It might not be for everyone or every situation (first date-wise, probably a snore) but its well-worth it for anyone with an appreciation for quirkiness and deeper- meanings. Well done! PS. So...anyone else notice how identical the TiMER store is to the Apple store?

You know that phrase "A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down"? Well, Timer is an old school sci-fi concept that's been covered in a romantic-comedy syrup. It floats along on the appealing work of the cast and the relaxed humor of the script, with an underlying bite of putting the human condition off kilter just enough to make you think about the world you live in and how you live in it.By old school sci-fi, I mean the sort of storytelling the genre was born doing. No ray guns, monsters, mad scientists or anything like that. Science fiction started out as a way of pondering the way technology is and might change human existence. For Timer, that's imagining a world of people walking around with a digital clock implanted in their wrist that counts down to the day they meet the soulmate they're going to spend the rest of their life with. What if you knew you were going to meet your one true love in 5 months? What if it wasn't going to happen for 10 years? What if your Timer was blank because your true love didn't have one implanted in his or her wrist?That last one is the case for Oona (Emma Caulfield). Staring down the barrel of her 30th birthday, her Timer remains blank no matter how many Timer-less guys she goes out with. Every time she drags them down to the Timer store and gets them to get one implanted, they're always counting down to the guys meeting someone other than Oona. That's left her in a frozen state of anticipation, unable to focus on anything except the guaranteed love who refuses to materialize. Oona's rebel-without-a-cause stepsister Steph (Michelle Borth) has got her own Timer issues. She's not scheduled to meet her true love for many years, but Steph diverts herself from that by seeking out as many disposable relationships as she can. After all, if you know it can't last, why would you want to bother with anything more than a one-night stand?Eventually overcome with frustration, Oona throws herself into a fling with a 22 year old musician (John Patrick Amedori) who's got 5 months left on his Timer. Steph finds herself falling into like with a Timer-less guy (Desmond Harrington) who radiates the sincerity she avoids like the plague. Things don't go smoothly for either sister, but you can probably figure most of that out on your own.This is a keen little film that touches on an awful lot of the implications that flow out of its interesting premise. The Timer has a different, yet equally profound, effect on so many people in this story and we don't just see the effect it has on them. We also watch the way it alternately regulates and disorders the way those people deal with each other. It's never preachy, but it will make you reconsider your own understanding of love and how you've shaped your life around it.The striking Emma Caulfield heads up an excellent troupe of performers who all have an exquisite grasp on the delicate balance of the script. They all manage to play real people, even when the characters veer off into romantic-comedy clichés. And writer/director Jac Schaeffer proves as adept at unfolding the story on screen as she was in getting down on paper.Timer's pretty restrained in all areas and could probably have used a few more random jokes in the first 30 minutes or so, but it's the sort of movie that's worth investing your time in, even if you are still waiting for your soulmate to arrive.