Netflix Wednesdays: Timer (2009)

Review for Timer (2009)
Written and Directed by: Jac Schaeffer
Starring: Emma Caulfield, Michelle Borth, John Patrick Amedori
Available on Netflix as of 3/30/2016

Review
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Timer is an indie rom-com that takes place in a world where people are swept up in the latest dating craze. It's called the Timer, and it counts down, assuming your partner also has a Timer, to the day when you two will first meet, and the moment that you lay eyes on each other. Our main character, Oona ("as in Uma Thurman?") has a Timer, but her partner does not and therefore, it isn't counting down yet. This is a cause of distress, because like lots of young adults, Oona is concerned that she's never going to meet that special someone.



Timer immediately has a few things that are net positives. For one, Oona has lived in this Timer world for a significant period, her whole life in fact. Her mother has a Timer, her little brother comes of age to get his Timer in the film. This means that she and the people she meets are not introduced to this novel concept as a means of cipher for the viewer, she knows it intimately. So when she meets rock and roll drummer Mikey, who only has four months left, she knows what she's getting into. It's a relationship that can't work. His soulmate is out there waiting for him, and her's somewhere else. But Mikey says, "hey, why not have some fun?"

While the characters are not overly drawn, they are little more than common stereotypes. Oona is the same listless twenty-something (twenty-nine in this case, as if to capitalize on a modern myth that after thirty life ends or something) waiting for her chance to basically have a meet-cute. Meet-cute is a screenwriting term for when the destined lovers meet each other, and the audience knows they're going to be soulmates (even if the rest of the plot is concerned with them realizing that happening). Timer, by making a physical world building tool out of what is essentially a population looking for their meet-cute, has adaquately curbed the standard romance plot. The Timer is less of an accidental pick-me-up followed by the standards of chasing the love and working out problems (likely with an ex, or someone else getting in the way of romance) and actually dealing with the stress of knowing that this relationship won't last. It's a deep rooted cynicism that strikes at the heart of anyone who has known and lost love.

But that's not to say Timer isn't without it's fair share of problems.

The primary problems of Timer is that the plot is all it has. It's characters are stereotypes. While they work well with this world, it's because the world makes them more interesting than the A and B stereotypes of every other rom-com. The actors do not bring any sort of life to them. Emma Caulfield is unfortunately stare-heavy, with her wideset eyes and open eyelids conveying her frustration but nothing else well. And when you get down to it, these actors really didn't have much of a script to work with.

While the plot does a great job of conveying the romance angle, the attempts at comedy absolutely fail. To have a good rom-com you have to have at least one or the other. Here the comedy is often so badly written that it wouldn't matter if George Carlin was delivering this stuff. "If I'm a pussy then I'm about to have the hottest lesbian sex of my life!" Gets spouted as a legitimately one-upping line, that also is supposed to have the effect of impressing the lead character into liking the guy? I know middle schoolers that could've roasted you into the ground based on that. "Tell me what you did or I'm going to pee in your bed!" is said as if it's some pent-up fetishist's fantasy of the two women in this film. Has anyone ever legitimately threatened urinating to someone else as a knee-slapper?

While the script and acting are a bit weak, the focus on character conflict and world mechanics still makes this film err slightly on the watchable side. It isn't a brand new classic, but if you're looking for a rom-com with a just enough hints of unfamiliarity that you're left wondering if the couple in this film will or won't by the end, then Timer is a decent watch.
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