USA. 2020.
Crew
Director – Eric Schultz, Screenplay – Justin Moretto, Eric Schultz & Thomas Torrey, Producers – Justin Moretto, Ross O’Connor, Eric Schultz, Nicolai Schwarzkopf & Thomas Torrey, Photography – Justin Derry, Music – Gavin Brevik, Visual Effects Supervisors – Alex Noble & James Siewert, Production Design – Annie Simeone. Production Company – Bad Theology/Relic Pictures/Uncorked Productions.
Cast
Sathya Sridharan (Dr Ethan Kochar), Paton Ashbrook (Dr Alli Fisher), Dana Ashbrook (Malcolm Blume), Nikolas Kontomanois (Dr Paul Kochar)
Plot
Dr Ethan Kochar struggles to perfect the formula for a device that was begun by his father despite having been shut out of the project by the academic team. After receiving a mysterious notebook in the mail with the completed formula, Ethan is able to complete the process. Using himself as a subject, Ethan enters into the machine, which will divide his personality into ten different parts. However, after emerging, Ethan then finds himself in a nightmare where he is only conscious for six minutes every hour before each of the other personalities take their turn. Through this, he with the aid of Alli Fisher, tries to reverse the process at the same time as some of Ethan’s other personalities start trying to actively sabotage it.
Minor Premise was a feature-length directorial debut for Eric Schultz, who had previously worked as a producer for several years. Schultz had previously made the basis of this as the seven-minute short film Premise (2020), also starring Sathya Sridharan.
We have had Films About Split Personality before from the numerous versions of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – see Jekyll and Hyde Films – to dramatic films like The Three Faces of Eve (1957), Sybil (1976), Primal Fear (1996), the tv series The United States of Tara (2009-11) and Frankie & Alice (2010). In genre material, we have examples such as The Other (1972), Sisters (1973), Raising Cain (1992), Fight Club (1999), Identity (2003), Goodnight Mommy (2014) and Split (2017), among others. Minor Premise falls into being one of the rare science-fiction films about split personality – the only example that comes to mind is the recent, undeniably interesting Jonathan (2018).
The tone of Minor Premise falls somewhere between a split personality film and Primer (2004), the science-fiction film about two scientists engaged in an experiment in time travel that ended up creating a mind-bogging labyrinth of alternate scenarios and multiple selves. There is even the same dense plotting and visual style in both films.
The core premise of Minor Premise is a strong one. I loved the idea of the protagonist having to share time with his other ten personalities with they getting six minutes of the hour each and he waking up each time not knowing what havoc the others have wrought. The problem is that the difference between personalities is not always clear – this is an idea that needed a much more clearcut telling and is not something the dense, fractured visual style always accomplishes.
Nevertheless, there is frequently a very fascinating film that emerges, particularly during the second half once the dramatic throughline becomes far more apparent. Sathya Sridharan gives an excellent performance in the roles, becoming progressively more burned out and developing a death-like pallor throughout. Paton Ashbrook gives a solid empathic performance and is someone that you expect to go on to do much better things in future. She is the daughter of Daphne Ashbrook, a minor actress of the 1990s, and Lorenzo Lamas. She is also niece of Dana Ashbrook, a slightly better known actor around the same time, who makes an appearance as a fellow scientist angling to get in on the project.
Trailer here