Minor Premise

I'm a screenwriter and this flick really stunned me. Totally original, compelling sci-fi from an Indy studio that focused on script and story, not CGI. Really impressive work. Finely drawn characters and grade A performances from the whole cast and the director, too. It's up there with PRIMER and INTACTO.

I'm not sure if this film is very, very smart or very, very stupid, which probably says more about me than the film. I will say one thing definitively and that is it's fairly intriguing if you let yourself get into it. The lead actor, and more or less the whole show with one smaller exception, is played by an actor who seemed so familiar to me yet there is nothing in his credits that I have seen. His name is Sathya Sridharan this is a whale of a role for any actor and he mostly pulls it off. This low budget budget film, and it shows now and then, is about a man dealing with 10 aspects of his consciousness as he has separated them from being one entity. Beyond this intricate scenario he changes from one aspect to another every 6 minutes. So we see him jumping from apathy, exuberance, anger, psychosis, etc. He is sometimes at war with himself somewhat like a split personality. While a lot of this is very interesting some of it is not very clear at times particularly the time jumping. He has brought this dilemma on to himself by following in the footsteps of his father who pops up every now and then as well though I'm not so sure how much this character is needed. As an on and off assistant to him in all of this is his very patient ex-girlfriend who is the one exception that I mentioned. This will either be boring, nonsense or intriguing depending upon the individual watching. I suspect that the first choice will be the most common, but for serious sci-fi buffs you probably want to take a peek at this.

Neuroscientist Ethan Kocher attempts to continue his father's work in the study of brain patterns. However, when he carries out an experiment on himself he finds that his brain has been divided into several distinct personalities (one particular personality is a dangerous one). This isn't the only concern to Ethan though as he soon learns that he must try and reverse the procedure as soon as possible before his brain is destroyed completely...

Despite its short running time, Minor Premise does take a bit of time to get going (the start is filled with seminars and mind-boggling jargon which I suspect will go over some people's heads). It improves ever so slightly once Ethan starts to focus on his father's work. Sadly though, a lot of the time we're just seeing fleeting moments of Ethan's varying personalities and they never seem to get explored in any kind of depth (this is a problem inherent in making a film focusing on multiple personalities). For this reason, I never found the film to be particularly involving; if anything it's repetitive and quite boring.

Lead actors Sathya Sridharan and Paton Ashbrook give reasonable performances, but their efforts are mostly wasted in something as dreary as this. I would have preferred it if Ethan's 'normal' personality had a bit more charisma, charm and likeability as at the very least the film would have given us someone to root for, but I just found myself not really caring here.

In short then, Minor Premise is an interesting idea mostly wasted due to its lack of depth and repetitive nature which made the film tedious more than anything else.

A great movie. I like it. And who does not, you just did not understand him.

I'm much more interested in the genre when it trades in big ideas over big effects and Minor Premise delivers this in spades. You've just got to marvel at the creativity involved in conjuring up a scenario where the brain's hemisphere's are split into ten separate personalities in a chess mach against each other. They mine this concept for an effective race against time thriller that makes the most out of it's minimalist setting.

Sathya Sridharan's delivery is on point, but also a little understated, as many of the sub-personalities are never even fully explored. You can only imagine what would happened were the role given to someone like Jim Carrey, and while an over the top performance may have been more impressive, it would likely border on parody.

For such a heady film, it's kind of hard not to overthink the glaring flaws in logic it stumbles through along the way. Sure, such an outlandish premise requires a little willing suspension of disbelief, but one can't help but feel they could have tightened up some of the details. It's not enough to derail the train for me, but if you get hung up on the little things, there's sure to be a couple that rub you the wrong way.

**** "SPOILER / ONLY RELAVENT IF YOU'VE SEEN THE FILM" SECTION****

We're expected to believe each personality accomplishes everything within 6 minutes? One of the personalities buys and installs a security camera, in 6 minutes? It would take longer than that waiting in line at the store. Why didn't they take any precautions to keep the more erratic personalities away from the irreplaceable, life altering equipment? He just leaves the embodiment of anger, prone to smashing things, in a room with his life's work, like there's no alternative? The way they treat having an equation like some sort of secret password/skeleton key? I'm no neuroscientist, but I doubt they're all just one line of algebra away from taping into the inner mechanics of the brain. Honestly, the whole thing is preposterous really, and for the most part, I'm all for it, I just needed to vent a few gripes.