Primer is renowned for its complicated storytelling and shocking plot twists that require multiple viewings to understand, but the true extent of the film’s complexity goes even further than most viewers realize. The film was released in 2004 as the debut feature of Shane Carruth, who also starred as the movie’s protagonist, Aaron. The narrative centers around two friends who accidentally develop a time machine and become obsessed with the dark consequences of their creation. It’s one of the most confusing and strictly the weirdest sci-fi movies ever made, but this is also its biggest strength.

While the plot of Primer is very confusing, the level of craftsmanship on display doesn’t take multiple viewings to appreciate. For a debut feature with such a low budget, Carruth’s film is so creative with its unique camerawork and gritty visuals; its down-to-earth storytelling is its biggest strength, despite being a consequence of low funding. The film is a perfect example of how budget and studio involvement shouldn’t define the quality of a movie.

Primer Is The Most Confusing Time Travel Movie You’ll Ever Watch

The Timelines Are Very Hard To Understand

Time travel movies have a tendency to be confusing, given how loosely they play with the concept of time and paradoxes, but Primer takes this to a whole new level. The film has a very unique concept of time travel that involves overlapping timelines and multiple versions of the main characters existing at the same point in time. It’s inherently difficult to wrap one’s head around, but that’s the point – it’s a film about how easily time travel can distort reality beyond recognition.

The film also features some brilliant character work, using these two protagonists and their skewed perceptions of reality to explore how the need for control can become a dangerous obsession that leads people down irreparable paths. These friends become enamored with their creation and attempt to bend reality to their own desires, which obviously has disastrous consequences. The road there is extremely complicated, but the journey’s message is very clear: we understand very little about the universe, and that’s probably for the best.

Despite Being Confusing, Primer Is One Of The Most Well-Thought-Out Time Travel Movies

The Strength Of Carruth’s Writing Keeps The Film Alive

For such a low-budget indie sci-fi movie, everything about Primer feels extremely purposeful and intentional. The characters’ actions always match their intentions, the mechanics of the time machine are impressively consistent, and Carruth’s screenplay miraculously avoids any glaring plot holes. This is no easy feat, particularly for a film that’s dealing with multiple timelines intersecting at once. It takes a very skilled writer to balance all these ideas together without dropping the ball, but Carruth clearly took his time with this story and ensured that everything somehow made sense.

The amount of planning that’s required to make a film like Primer work is immense; the exact moment that characters’ journeys intersect, the way timelines converge at certain points in the story, and specific moments that happen multiple times in different ways – this is why audiences find the story so hard to understand, and it must have been even harder to write. And yet, upon subsequent watches, the fundamentals of this story become much clearer.

You Need To Watch Primer Multiple Times Just To Begin To Understand It

Attempting To Understand Primer On First Watch Is A Pointless Task

Primer is one of the few movies that essentially comes with homework; it’s almost impossible to watch the movie just once and understand everything that happens, so audiences will likely need a second watch to fully enjoy the intricacies of this sci-fi adventure. This is because viewers are intentionally kept in the dark for the majority of Primer, with the truth of this narrative not becoming clear until certain reveals are made in the third act that completely reframe everything that came before.

However, that’s not to say audiences won’t at least appreciate Primer the first time around. It’s immediately clear that Carruth’s film is operating on another level, from the compelling dialogue between characters to the gripping sci-fi filmmaking without the use of CGI. It doesn’t require an in-depth knowledge of events to enjoy, but this deeper understanding certainly elevates the viewing experience. New details become clear on every single rewatch, and no matter how many times you’ve seen Primer, there’s always something new that reveals itself.