pmsumner

What a corking film.
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Anthony Hopkins, Gwyneth Paltrow, Hope Davis.

Loose plot line: Anthony Hopkins plays Gwyneth Paltrow's father, an aging and slowly deteriorating mathematician. Brilliant in his day, had achieved several major feats in the field of mathematics by the age of 22. He dies, sadly enough, and a proof is found in his possessions which his daughter claims as hers. The story builds up to this moment with Jake playing an unsatisfied ex-student of his who Gwyneth falls for, Hope playing the popular and completely different sister who doesn't understand.

Wonderful film. See it now.

Another movie. I picked this up from HMV randomly, it was on display and I was taken in by the tag line "Donnie Darko for grown ups". I like doing this, and have found many a good film and CD by this method. After I got home I investigated a little before watching, and apparently it was made with a budget of $7,000, the crew shot 80 minutes of film, and used 78 in the final cut. Astonishing figures.

The storyline is complex,not bowing to the inevitable pressure to make films that pander to the lowest common denominator. This film will require at least 2 viewings to be able to get everything, I'm sure.

It starts off focussing on a group of 4 young, successful scientists/engineers who run their own company from home, outside of their full time jobs. They mainly sell to the consumer/hacker market who like to experiment with new things and are looking for a way to break into the mass market.

One member is intrigued with the way that gases react under certain conditions and pushes to experiment further, and two of the group slowly but surely become separated from the rest of the group, working largely on their own. They make minor discoveries which lead them to believe that the device they have constructed does something, but what? It becomes apparent that it's capable of distorting time. The story now focusses on how they work with this device, what they do and the ethical struggles that they have in what they should do.

All reviews I've read draw direct parallels to Pi. The filming style is similar, and it deals with a similarly weird subject. With this being the director's first movie, it's not at all perfectly shot, written or directed. It's not an easy, funny, delightful, charming or witty movie. It is clever, challenging and uncompromising. I will be watching this again and am very glad I picked it up.