The Infinite Man (2014)

Purely Joyful Movie!

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

Saw this at the Leiden Film Festival 2014 (LIFF). What will you do when given the chance to "repair" a failed romantic weekend by changing the past and reliving those days again in a new setup?? Though I found the end result disappointing, there were several positive elements in this film. Firstly, it did not waste resources in the making: 3 actors in total, a single location, and without a gadget overload. Secondly, the deserted sea resort offered an excellent décor with ample opportunities for seeing things from different angles, running parallel scenes in various rooms, and letting variants from the protagonists meet, or even see one copy meeting another. Thirdly, the successive chapters were clearly labeled "xx years later", a great help while trying to follow the story line while it developed in (for me) mysterious ways.On the negative side, I found the movie mildly interesting overall, not thought provoking in any way, no mind bending time paradoxes, at least none that I felt as challenging. The role of the gadgets (looked like EEG headsets, as used in hospital) was poorly explained, and I saw no one actually wearing them, so it is not clear what their purpose was in the proceedings. Devices and schematics might have looked highly technical for the average layman, but were in fact outdated for at least 30 years. The protagonists did not interest me at all, so I was not pulled in by the turn of events that this movie presented to us. It merely looked a bit unnatural, like finding a way to turn a basically good idea into a feature length movie without having enough material to fill the allotted time.All in all, I got less than what I had expected. (And I had serious problems to stay awake. It may not be completely the film's fault, but anyway it was a fact.) My fault may be that I've read too many SF books in my life, and usually observe that movies, within their limited time frame, cannot present a consistent plot without loop holes in the time travel section. For some reason, books prove to be a better place to design a believable setup with richer details. Anyway, the idea behind this film was fresh, the décor was very well chosen, the actors were casted well, and all did their best to cope with the script. Yet, I'm still surprised about the many good things other reviewers found in this film, all of which I regrettably overlooked (so it seems).

This is the second local production to feature time travel as a key narrative device. But unlike Predestination, the concept here is used as a plot device to kick start an enjoyable but unusual romantic comedy. Dean (Josh McConville, from The Turning, etc) is a nerdy engineer whose relationship with the more free spirited Lana ended a couple of years ago. Keen to try and make a new start Dean invites Lana back to the hotel where they once spent an idyllic holiday. But now the hotel is deserted, and the weekend begins to go badly. The unexpected arrival of the arrogant and sleazy Terry (Alex Dimitriades), Lana's former boyfriend, further ruins the mood. Dean spends the better part of the next year brooding over what went wrong. He constructs a time travel device hoping that he can revisit that weekend again and repair the relationship with Lana. But something goes awry and he finds himself trapped in a temporal loop. The presence of four other incarnations of himself, and a couple of other Lana's from the future, further complicate matters. There are only three actors on screen, playing multiple versions of themselves, and the action is confined to a single location, but somehow that doesn't seem to matter. McConville brings a nicely intense edge and a touch of self-deprecating humour to his performance as the nerdy and sad sack Dean desperate to restore his relationship with Lana. Hannah Marshall (from TV series Packed To The Rafters, etc)delivers a nicely nuanced performance as the patient Lana, while Dimitriades is wonderfully sleazy and cocky. First time filmmaker Hugh Sullivan makes the most of his limited budget, and stretches his meagre resources effectively. And I found The Infinite Man to be far more entertaining and enjoyable that Predestination, and when dealing with the paradoxes of time travel it seems to have an internal logic that works. It also seems to have more energy and humour, and likable characters.

The production was of a very high level, excellent sound and visuals- nice cinematography. Clearly a lot of thought went into the script, but in its quest to be intellectual, sacrificed some of the humanity of the characters. A lot of the quirks of the characters, the way the male lead ran, the vintage clothes, the references to Greek mythology and tantra all seemed very forced.Important philosophical questions about identity, why we love someone at different times in our lives and why/when we should give up on someone were partially raised but never really explored. By the end of it, I felt like a lot had happened, but I didn't care about the characters at all - I hardly got to know them. All in all, it felt like it was all style and little substance.

With a cast of 3 and barely more than one location, first-time feature filmmaker (and writer), Hugh Sullivan, has woven together a topsy-turvy time travel film that falls somewhere between 'Primer' and 'Groundhog Day'. The initial impression is of pure comedy with time travel as the incidental extreme that the main character (played by a fantastic Josh McConville) is willing to go to in order to keep control over his love life. The result is a complex, infinite loop that wowed me with every twist and turn. Though never stepping over the line into 'Thriller' or serious 'Science-Fiction', the logic of the storyline is mathematically maddening and the film does consider some truly heavy existential ideas like the result of jealousy on relationships and how fear of change and the desire to control others is almost always counterproductive. Ultimately, the film is just a ton of fun and, though it perfectly fits within the supposed film-festival mold, even the most novice of movie-goers would get a huge kick out of this one.