TiMER

Tribeca Film Festival Review

TedFlicks Rating:

$10 ticket on a scale of $0 to $12.00

“Torniamo al antico; Sara un progresso.”
— Giuseppe Verdi on Richard Wagner
(Let us return to the old way; that would be progress.)

A CHARMING LOOK INTO A CERTAIN FUTURE

“TiMER,” the first feature from writer/director Jac Schaeffer, is a charming look into a future of certainties.  It’s part sci-fi, part comedy, part buddy film, part romance, and 100% chick flick.  That’s no easy trick.

Oona O’Leary (Emmy Caulfield, best known from TV’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Beverly Hills 90210”), pretty, uptight, about-to-be 30 orthodontist, wants guarantees in life and love.  In the futuristic world of “TiMER” (which looks a lot like Los Angeles here and now), the timer, a device surgically implanted on the wrist, offers one.  The timer tells one how exactly how long one will wait to meet one’s true love.  It’s like dating service eHarmony on steroids.

Oona’s problem is that her timer has not even started ticking – which means that she either will never have a true love or that he has not yet got a timer.  One’s true love must have a timer for one’s own to start ticking.  (It beeps like a pager when the lucky couple meet.)  Opening scenes show her bringing prospective love connections to the timer franchise to have the device implanted – only to learn that each one is not Mr. Right.  That is tough for Oona to swallow.

Step-sister Steph, ably played by Michelle Borth, has one and it’s counting down – for years to come.  Steph makes the most of it by casual sex with guys whose timers are also counting down – but to different dates.    It’s one way of dealing with the inevitable.  Borth also figures in an amusing subplot at the old-age home where Steph works involving an octogenarian World War Two vet played by John Ingle of Kitchen Aid commercial fame.  Her relationship with Oona is pic’s buddy aspect.

Into Oona’s well-ordered world lands Mikey, supermarket checkout boy (John Patrick Amedori), who also drums in a rock band at the bar Steph tends in her night job.  An uncharacteristic (for Oona) romance follows the classic meet cute.  Mikey has a timer, but it is revealed as a fake 55 minutes into the pic, a tool to score with chicks still waiting for their soulmates.  (“The closer they get to D-Day, the more likely they are to throw you around a little bit.”)  He’s also eight years younger than Oona.  According to the timer, Oona’s soulmate is Dan the Man (Desmond Harrington), who doesn’t make an appearance until more than halfway through the flick.  JoBeth Williams excels as Steph’s and Oona’s mom, providing much of pic’s comedy.

Pic’s moral, if there is one, is revealed by Delphine (Nicki Norris), mistress of Oona’s estranged dad, legendary record producer Rick O’Leary (Muse Watson).  “I had it [the timer] removed,” she tells Oona.  “Your dad isn’t my one, but I love him.  Fuck it.”  Or as Mikey says to Oona in a pivotal scene, “Your problem is not that I can’t give you a guarantee.  It’s that you can’t give me one.”

Schaeffer skillfully creates a realistic future not too different from the present and very believable.  Pic benefits from snappy dialogue.  Technical credits are fine.  Editing by Peter Samet and lensing by Andrew Kaiser are more than up to the job.  Maya Siegel’s music, with a tick-tock theme, is well suited to the screenplay.

“TiMER” does not have a distributor as of this writing and is not rated, but it is a compelling flick that can attract intelligent filmgoers if properly marketed.  It may, however, fly well over the heads of America’s largely teenage movie audience.  Parents should use discretion due to sexual situations and some language, but pic is in no way offensive.

—30—

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