PRIMER

(director/writer: Shane Carruth; cinematographer: Shane Carruth; editor: Shane Carruth; music: Shane Carruth; cast: Shane Carruth (Aaron), Dave Sullivan (Abe), Casey Gooden (Robert), Carrie Crawford (Kara), Anand Upadhyaya (Phillip), Jay Butler (Metal Shop Worker); Runtime: 78; MPAA Rating: PG-13; producer: Shane Carruth; New Line Home Entertainment; 2004-English, French)

“It’s a brainy, edgy and talky cult film.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Self-taught filmmaker Shane Carruth (“Upstream Color”), who as a college student majored in math and after graduation worked as an engineer, shot his debut film, an over-complicated sci-fi film, on a budget of around $7,000 and shot it on 16-millimeter. In this indie he directs, writes, stars, photographs, edits, casts and produces.

Nerdy best friends Abe (Dave Sullivan) and Aaron (Shane Carruth) work a white-collar day job and spend their free time in a suburban U-Haul garage working on inventing a superconductor gadget. By accident they come up with a gizmo taken for a time machine when there’s a time loop they can crawl into.

The boys are excited by their discovery and hope to get rich from it and change the world. But something mysterious happens when they continue working on it the next four days. This changes their ambitious plans, as the plot then becomes too confusing to follow on just one viewing.

It’s a brainy, edgy and talky cult film that displays inventive filmmaking (influenced by Darren Aronofsky’s Pi) that calls for multiple viewings to grok and lots of patience to handle the tedium.

It played at the Sundance Film Festival.

REVIEWED ON 1/8/2026  GRADE: B-
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