Norman

It was way too slow and boring. The only positive thing was cinematography - close up shots and all sorts of other things done with the camera, it looked professional. However, the script is awful, dialog is boring and actors are, well, pretending to act, they aren't playing their characters. I really wanted to like this movie, since Primer, which is also a low-budget time travel movie was everything I was hoping for.

Producers focused too much on getting this movie to look pretty and professionally shot, whilst forgetting that story should be the central point.

I could forgive for the bad acting, since, I know they aren't professional, paid actors, as long as the script is good and the story is intriguing. In this case, it felt they just wanted to shoot all sorts of objects up close and show off their camera skills.

I am really sad the plot is so dull, I can't recommend this movie to anybody.

Can we get past using "slow-paced" as an insult please? Yes, this movie is not fast, but that doesn't make it bad, it has a very deliberate pace, and it moves along very well. The story is indeed told in a disjointed fashion, but that in and of itself is also part of the story, so if you take issue with disjointed storytelling, just don't watch this. Even though it is disjointed, it is not hard to understand, I did not struggle at all to figure out what was going on, nor did I need to see it twice, though I do plan on watching it again anyway because I really enjoyed it. I enjoy low-budget films, I watch a lot of them, and enjoy them more than big-budget films most of the time.

I read several reviews, without spoilers, before watching, and even though they were all universally negative, I had to watch it because it is time travel, and I love time travel films. I am beginning to realize how little I can trust reviews anymore because people conflate their personal taste with whether or not something is good. That's not a review, that is trying to frame your opinion as fact, grow up. If you dislike low-budget films, avoid this, if you dislike slow movies, avoid this, if you dislike out of sequence storytelling, avoid this, if you dislike movies that don't explain very thing for you, avoid. If you watch it anyway, well, you set yourself up to watch something you will dislike, no one is to blame but you. I ended up really enjoying this movie, and I'm glad I ignored the negative reviews, I recommend it to a family member who also liked it as well.

Despite that, I will point out the one big flaw, and that is a scene between Norman and the character Jenny, Just in that one scene, the acting from Norman is pretty bad, thankfully it is a brief scene. Otherwise, while not perfect, the acting is very solid. I have little negative to say about this movie in terms of how it was made, especially for it's budget. The sound and music are superb, the lighting is great, the setting and props in the house are all great, the story is good, the writing is good, the overall execution is good, this is a very well-thought out and well executed low-budget sci-fi drama. It is obvious the director has a previous background in film making, though this is his first directorial effort.

I cannot fault this film for what it is, it is a philosophical meditation on the nature of destiny and choice, and it dos a good job of showing what that looks like in a time travel context. To say more would ruin the film, if you like time travel and philosophy, and don't mind a movie with little action, there is much to love here.

Ok I'm happy to write the first review for this movie.

So essentially you have Norman, trapped in the present day trying to travel back to the future of 2085. The reasons he wants to travel back I won't spoil. But every time he has some sort of interaction with the outside world, people and such, he gets headaches and flashes from other times and places.

So I really wanted to like this movie a lot more but the lead actor just isn't good enough, its a mixed performances at best with some underacting and overacting. The most lively performance is the A. I. companion A. N. I. (which isn't a good sign that the A. I. has more personality than the lead) who comes in a third of the way in. Another problem is the stakes don't feel high so we the viewer are not as invested as we could be. The third act fails as well because of the tonal shift, it decides it wants to be a action movie with too many close ups of people shooting and not enough wide shots of the action, and the ending is kind of predictable. There are many shots of tea being poured, switches being turned on, rain on the siding of the house. Its a slow burning movie and has some big ideas but its not very well acted, written, and too slow to recommend. But its not a train wreck or horrible. Its just slow, pretentious and the lead actor/character has no personality for us to get behind or care why stuff is happening. It is competently directed and is a good looking film and I'm happy for the filmmaker being able to get his project realized after 9 years but its a watch and forget kind of movie unfortunately.

I gave it a 2, after all, it was shot in color. Perhaps the language should have been French, it has all those deep symbolic moments the viewer is supposed to absorb. sadly, I was only one third in when my fidgety twitching gave way to using the right arrow key on the video player. I'm not unsympathetic to Indies, some have been milestones in movie history. This will not be one of them.

The concept is decent enough and could have made a great 30 min episode of Black Mirrors or the Outer Limits. I kept waiting for it to get interesting with a plot twist or the action to pick up. But nope... 💤