Minor Premise
Minor Premise is like a low-budget Christopher Nolan movie without the big action sequences but with all the ambitious, twisty ideas in place. In this case, the themes have to do with the human mind and how it regulates emotions. Director/co-writer Eric Schultz makes an impressive debut, successfully telling a complex story in a manner that's always clear. That yields ninety-five minutes of intelligent, ambitious suspense.
Sathya Sridharan plays Ethan Kochar, a brilliant, slightly troubled neurologist. He and his late father worked together, but the elder Kochar has received most of the credit, to Ethan's chagrin. His dad's former partner, Malcolm (Twin Peaks' Dana Ashbrook), encourages him to forget about all that and just continue working on his machine that can turn people's memories into digital files.
Unbeknownst to Malcolm, Ethan is already using himself as a guinea pig and going beyond the initial scope of the experiment, which is leading to him enduring blackouts. He asks colleague/ex-girlfriend Alli (Paton Ashbrook, Dana's niece) for assistance. Together, they discover the scientist has essentially fractured his mind into ten different parts, each of which presents itself for six minutes at a time. For six minutes, he's rageful, horny, anxious, etc. At the top of each hour, he gets six minutes of “default” in which his mind is completely focused. One of those ten fragments, however, is hard to categorize, making it a mystery.
That's a thumbnail description of Minor Premise's concept. The fun comes in seeing what the movie does with it. Tension is generated from Ethan's efforts to figure out what the undefined fragment is. All he really knows is that it seems to have a chaotic effect. Additional tension comes from the way Alli has to work around his shifting personality in order to help him. She's perpetually in danger during those six minutes where rage comes forward. Then the question becomes how to bring all the Ethans back in line, if it's even possible.
A lot of credit must go to Sathya Sridharan. Playing all of Ethan's moods isn't easy, much less making them feel like they come from the same person. The actor pulls it off, showing how the character struggles to come to terms with the unbridled sections that comprise him. It's a terrific performance. Both the Ashbrooks do fine supporting work, and it's fun to see them in a couple scenes together.
Like any movie whose plot is a puzzle, there are one or two moments where some new twist happens before you've finished digesting the previous twist. Seeing it a second time would help in absorbing all the stuff the story throws at you. And that's okay, because it means the film is giving you plenty to engage with. Stylishly made and intellectually engaging, Minor Premise is a treat for fans of brainy sci-fi.
out of four
Minor Premise is unrated, but contains adult language and some violence. The running time is 1 hour and 35 minutes.
