2 April - "This is your one shot, so make it count"

Timer (2009)

dir. Jac Schaeffer

starring

Emma Caulfield

Michelle Borth

John Patrick Amedori (Unbreakable, 2000)

JoBeth Williams (The Big Chill, 1983)

I think I've proven a few times over that there are high-quality and worthwhile "chick flicks" and "rom coms" out there. You just never find because the marketing types would rather shove Jennifer Lopez or Kate Hudson mincing gimicks and making cheap pop-culture referencing jokes into your face for forty seconds than spend the money on making a movie worth watching. Instead, here you've got that chick who played Xander's girlfriend on Buffy trying to communicate something insightful.

The premise is silly, I guess you could call it Sci-fi, but that's not the point. You've got this technology called a "TiMER" and they implant it in your wrist and it starts a countdown for the day you meet your soul mate, or true love, and it's different for everyone. The main character, Oona, has a problem wherein her timer hasn't started ticking yet, which means whoever her true love is, he hasn't gotten a TiMER of his own. Her younger brother gets his implanted on his fourteenth birthday, and he learns he's going to meet his soul mate in three days, while Oona's sister, Steph, who I guess is in her 20s or something, isn't going to meet her's until she's forty-something. And there's a lot of other characters who have their own quirky variations on the theme and I guess the moral is supposed to be something like that life (or love, I guess) is not a race to the finish line, but the important parts are the detours you take along the way, the mistakes you make and whatnot.

But it's funny! The TiMER stores reminded me of nothing so much as an apple store. Emma Caulfield is very genuine to watch and she scrambles about trying to find the few rare men who haven't gotten TiMERs yet, and the sister has these scenes where she's working at a nursing home and, you know, crazy old-timers.

The interactions between Oona's mother and her housekeeper, Luz, are also hilarious, without giving too much away, Luz's family is invited to Thanksgiving dinner and they have no idea what is going on Oona's stepfather is mashing guacamole with a pestle and it's silly. It's all very silly.

Way to go, netflix recommendations.