Movie Review: TiMER

Title: TiMER
Starring: Emma Caufield, Michelle Borth, John Patrick Amedori, and Desmond Harrington
Release Year: 2009

TiMER takes place in a world where people can buy an implant that will tell them when they will meet their soul mate. The story follows Oona (Emma Caufield), a 30-year-old a woman whose TiMER is blank, meaning her one and only has not received a TiMER. The move starts out with Oona dragging her TiMER-less boyfriend into a TiMER store to receive his implant. To her disappointment, he is not her one and they part ways.

What would you do if the uncertainty is taken out of love?

For Oona, she desperately dates guys without TiMERs in the hopes one of them is for her. Her stepsister Steph (Michelle Borth), whose TiMER won't hit zero until she is 42, has anonymous sex with random guys - something which disgusts Oona. But after their younger brother receives his TiMER and learns he will meet his soul mate in just a few days, Oona changes her mind and starts an affair with a much younger man: a supermarket clerk by day, indie rock musician by night. His TiMER is four months away from zeroing out.

The movie subtly shows the importance of life being unscripted. For some (such as Oona's mother), the TiMER is a miraculous invention that has done away with the heartbreak associated with failed relationships. For Oona, the TiMER has been a curse she has lived with, mocking her with the possibility that she would never find true love. In TiMER, the quest for romantic completeness is portrayed as the be-all, end-all of life, and those whose TiMERs have not yet zeroed out are simply biding their time. This is a disconcerting mindset, and perhaps is is a mild poke at the cultural obsession with finding true love so prevalent in books, movies, and fairy tales.

I enjoyed TiMER and thought it was an interesting departure from the normal romantic comedies out there. The premise is unique (if complete scientific bullshit) and there is enough sociological philsophying to make my brain happy.

"Do you think the TiMER actually works, or is it just a self-fulfilling prophecy?"